The Ivory Champion
by AFiddlingSnail
Summary: Pyrrha wasn't entirely sure what happened; she died, or so she thought. But if she truly died, how could she be standing here? And, more importantly, had she imagined the changes the darkness had made to her? After all, everything looks perfectly normal, doesn't it?
1. Endings and Beginnings

The woman with raven hair and ember eyes drew back her drawstring. So this is how it ends. Pyrrha tried to believe, that like she'd heard in so many tales, she had no regrets; that she was unafraid as she stared into the face of her executioner. But searching through herself she found no such thing. She regretted not kissing Jaune sooner, but she also regretted kissing him at all. Would he be able to move on now? Just how much would he blame himself? She pulls him close to her and pours all her feelings for him into that one kiss, and then goes and gets herself killed.

The thought brought her more pain than the arrow in her heel did.

She hoped he wouldn't blame himself, though she knew he would, and that only made the pain, the guilt, worse. She regretted not being able to tell Nora and Ren goodbye; the pain was less for that though, they had each other, they were partners, they would move forward together as they always had. She wished she could've seen her home once more, the gentle townhome of white brick in Mistral with an equal parts intimidating and welcoming bronze trimmed door. She wished for so much, she didn't _want_ to die, hell, she was terrified of the end that creeped ever closer to her. She could feel it almost breathing down her neck, whispering in her ear, as the woman with the raven hair seemed to pull back the bowstring in almost slow motion.

She was scared, so very scared. She wanted to grow old beside her lover, preferably Jaune, and die peacefully surrounded by family, but that was not to be, and she had made it so. She was scared for all the people she held dear. She had failed to stop the raven haired woman, just as Professor Ozpin had moments before, and now her friends would die because of her failure, them and all of Vale.

The bowstring was taut now, at full draw. The shattered moon above shone down brightly on the chaos below; fitting that such a broken thing would be shining over the remnants of Vale so brightly tonight. From far below she could hear the sounds of battle, swords clashing, Grimm bellowing in agony, fury, and just sanguinary bloodlust. But up here, atop Beacon's once glimmering tower, it all seemed so distant. It was silent here, save for her own labored breathing and the quick, excited breaths of the woman with raven hair.

With a start Pyrrha realized these were her last moments. Shouldn't she be thinking of something nice? Something happy to stave off the horror of the now? She should, shouldn't she? She desperately poured over her memories searching for one to give her peace, to give her strength. The ones from before this year were sparse and scattered: a motherly smile here, the simple nod of her father there, but nothing remarkable. The ones from this year though...there were so many: the shocking white of Jaune's dress as it fluttered and shook as she watched him dance, the smile on Ren and Nora's faces as they joined in, her own inability to look away from this silly, lovely, incredible man, and his rather exposed, and very toned shoulders and collarbone. The warmth and steadiness she felt only a few days ago as she leaned her head on his shoulder; the steady support he provided, and the overwhelming joy and shock she felt when she realized his hand was on hers, before it faded away to contentment as the warm orange sun shone down on them. The manic laugh of Nora a mountain of tables above her as they utterly destroyed the cafeteria in the ultimate food fight, the enchanting smell of Ren's pancakes matched with the first rays of light on the weekends.

She remembered the warmth, the heat, she had felt as she pressed her lips against Jaune's, the joy, and the sadness. She wished they had shared more kisses over their time here, she wished the one memory she had of such a thing wasn't tinted with the inescapable sadness of destiny. But that was not to be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the _twang-thwap_ of a bowstring as it released, the taut cord smacking against the forearm of the raven haired woman as it launched her end. There was an overwhelming, all consuming, pain in her chest, and she instinctively gasped, winded by the fire that tore through her breast, but pain replaced the air as she struggled to breath. She couldn't cry out, the arrowhead inside her sternum prevented her from doing so. All she could do was whimper over and over again, each one growing ever softer.

The world before her began to darken, the colors fading away to muted grays save for the gleaming white of the woman's smile and the burning yellow of her eyes. She could feel her head lolling softly forwards as everything began to darken, but she didn't have the strength to do anything about it. In a world away Pyrrha registered that the woman had caught her head, preventing her from collapsing, and that she was doing...something to her body; it might have been painful, but she was beyond that, consumed by the ever fading light of death as the darkness enveloped her. She thought she heard something soft thud to her left, but it was too late. Everything went black.

Time seemed to pass, but Pyrrha had no way of knowing that for certain. She thought there was supposed to be something kind waiting for those who died, if they deserved it, but all she found was blackness. A dark so dark, a black so black, that it may have well as been a mountain: impassable and implacable.

With a start she realized that she was drifting towards the dark, and as she inched closer to it she could feel the negativity it radiated: hatred, loneliness, jealousy, bitterness, anger, betrayal, every negative emotion known to humanity seemed to emanate from the mountain, as it were, rocking her body as she floated through the void towards it. The negativity was so intense, so _solid_ that it left her feeling hollow; if this was the fate that awaited her after death then she must've done something truly terrible in her life, must've hurt someone more than they could've ever deserved.

Fear gripped her heart, her mind, her whole form as she drifted ever closer to the dark. She prepared herself for immense pain, but to her surprise felt nothing as she passed into it. Surely something so malicious would instantly cause her every fiber to become alight with suffering, right?

Despite herself, and the massive evil around her, a tiny flicker of hope began to burn in her mind: maybe this was only temporary? Maybe it was a mistake? A test? Maybe she would be greeted with peace after she passed through? As if on cue a laugh echoed through the dark, like it could feel the spark of hope intruding in its territory, and suddenly every malicious feeling about it seemed to grow tenfold, the darkness itself becoming more solid until it encased her, like being buried alive.

A woman's voice reverberated through her new reality; that was unexpected. Instead of a deep, booming, and hellish voice, the voice that spoke was higher in pitch and softer-spoken, yet somehow deeper in hate, in distaste for her. She couldn't make out what she said, the voice seemed to emanate from the point where she could hear, but not understand. It began to creep closer, growing in intensity, but shrinking in volume as it did, and yet still, she couldn't make out any words. But the tone, the hate, the jealousy, and sheer _negativity_ that the voice emanated chilled her to her very core. Another cold, derisive laugh, so close that it seemed to be coming from scant millimeters away from her ear. And then a sharp and burning pain erupted in her sternum, she tried to scream, but when she opened her mouth the darkness entered, like she was drowning. But this… this was not water, that much was obvious. It moved slowly and deliberately through her, scorching every part of her insides and outsides that it touched, it was a pain so deep and intense that she could feel it in her very soul. Everything burned. It would've been terrible if it happened for only a brief period of time, but the torture seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the blackness taking it's time transforming her, enveloping her as she begged for the peace of nothingness.

She wasn't sure how long it went on, she only knew that it seemed interminable; the voice had come and gone through it all, returning to briefly intensify the pain and laugh. She could tell from the tone that it was mocking her, but she still could not understand. She didn't care, she just wanted it to stop. She could feel the darkness as it transformed her, she wasn't sure how, but she could tell that she was changing. That was good, that meant this torture had a goal, that maybe it wouldn't continue indefinitely; she didn't care what it changed about her, so long as it stopped.

More time, more agony, more laughs, more mockery. How long had it been? Did it matter? She could feel that the darkness was almost done, that she was almost completely transformed, that she was nearing the end of her suffering. But, against all logic, a light appeared in the distant darkness. A soft light through the blackness, a tiny little orb floating through the Dark as if it was searching for something. The darkness around her seemed to ignore it, either that or it was unaware of the light's presence.

It moved ever closer to her on an erratic, zig-zagging path, but then the orb stopped. Scant feet before her it ceased its movement and just hovered, staring at her. As bizarre as it seemed, it had noticed her. The tiny thing began circling her form, scanning her up and down before coming to a rest in front of her face. She stared at it, and it stared at her, a funny thing to have a staring contest with an orb of light.

They stared and stared before it shuddered, before gingerly floating downward to her chest. There, it examined the hole in her sternum, where the darkness had begun her torture, and its form pulsed ever quicker as it did so. It seemed to hesitate there for a long while, the light within the orb shifting and swirling hypnotically. Maybe she was crazy to associate humanity with this light, but after an eternity of endless torture she realized it would be surprising if she _wasn't_ crazy. It shuddered slightly, as if making up it's mind, before floating back in front of her face, so close this time that it was touching her nose. A feeling of peaceful warmth spread through her body at the touch of the light, like sitting by a campfire and laughing while surrounded by loved ones. And then, it began to brighten. Like a hive waking, the darkness began to swarm towards the intruding light, but it was too late. In a flash of white it enveloped her, the suffering stopped and she could see nothing but white.

Her body told her she was falling, but all her eyes could verify was the whiteness. The sudden, aching thud of her body colliding with a hard tiled surface verified what her eyes could not. The most immediate thing she realized was that, save for the dull throbbing of her chest from the impact, the pain had stopped. It was _gone_. She couldn't help herself, she sobbed. She trembled and shook and sobbed, wailing in relief. After so long it was _over_.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed like that, her body and mind registering nothing but the lack of the ever present agony that she had been made to endure for so long. At some point her vision came back, only to be blurred by tears of relief as she cried. Slowly, her breathing began to steady and her eyes hazily focused on the only thing she could see: the ground. It was a worn gray tile, the cracks between filled with moss and lichen. It was cold to the touch, as if it hadn't felt the need to be warm in many years. She thought she should get up, but her body argued against it: for the first time in who knows how long she wasn't in agony, she should enjoy it, and the uncomfortable chill of the tile beneath her could wait.

More laying there, more examining the scuffs and grooves of the tile, and eventually her body resigned to her mind's insistence that she should rise. She pushed herself shakily out of the prone position she had been lying in, and the first thing she realized was that the room she was in had no roof. Huh. That's unusual. Her eyes gradually moved downwards from the dark sky where there should've been a roof, and towards the floor. Cogs of all shapes and sizes lay scattered around it, forming mountains of rusted steel that glittered weakly in the starlight. Remnants of what must've once been a majestic wall encircling the round room surrounded her, with high, arching windows, intricately carved and evenly spaced columns, and- _oh no_.

The majestic abandonment of the room was ruined by the massive black... _thing_ perched on the entire right side of the tower. Its wings were spread to their full extent, easily half a hundred meters from wingtip to wingtip. It's body was adorned with the scars of a hundred-thousand battles, bony, ivory-colored plates with red trim adorned key parts of its form, even stretching across its abdomen like twisted ribs. The same colored spikes rose from its back in two rows, one on the left and the other on the right, its face was entirely covered in a magnificent white mask that its top teeth seemed to erupt straight out of. Its mouth didn't end at the jaw like every other ordinary creature, but instead stretched down it's neck in a twisted and unnatural fashion, as if a child had forgotten where mouths should end, and still absentmindedly drew the line of its mouth down the neck far past its natural boundaries. It's monstrous mouth oozed frozen blackness, and was punctuated by deformed fangs that reached out as if to spear the very air. And like two glowing rubies, its eyes stared back at her with malevolence only surpassed by the darkness which she had resided in for so long. Her mouth moved without any conscious input.

"Oh."

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 **A/N:**

 _ **Bum Bum.**_ **Still not entirely satisfied with this chapter to be honest, but it's been sitting on my Google Docs for two or three months now and I just want to** _ **get it out**_ **so I can publish the more interesting chapters for this story that I've written so far. I welcome any and all feedback you may have; never want to stop improving after all.**

 **Also, as a side note, don't expect cover art for the story until, at the very least, the release of Chapter Five as I don't want to spoil anything beforehand.**

 **This fic will be updated weekly for the first 9-10 weeks, and ideally through its whole life, however I only have ten chapters written at the moment so I can only guarantee the first 9-10 weeks as weekly updates.**

 **9/9/2016, 10:52am: Updated chapter format so that the whole thing isn't a freaking wall of text, Chapter 2 format update coming later today.**


	2. Small Missteps

**A/N: Welcome back to** _ **The Ivory Champion**_ **! Hopefully the first chapter wasn't too rough; it's definitely** _ **far**_ **from perfect after all.**

 **That said, I am definitely more satisfied with this chapter, and I hope you guys are too!**

* * *

Muscle memory is a funny thing. Pyrrha's mind, though dulled somewhat after her time in the dark, instantly fell back into the combat role it knew so well: assess, react, exploit. Her body moved without her even realizing it, stiff joints and protesting muscles complaining as her legs launched her several feet backwards from the immediate threat. Despite not having her sword or shield, her arms instinctively fell into a defensive position: one extended to the right, where her sword would be, and a forearm braced horizontally in front of her, where her shield should be. Her body lowered itself, feet spreading wide as she shifted her center of gravity closer to the ground. All this was done in a matter of milliseconds, before her mind could even register that she was doing it.

It was just after her shield arm, though lacking the shield, was raised in front of her that she realized something was off. The grimm before her had not moved at all, not even the slightest inch; it hadn't roared a challenge, made eye contact, or even emanated the tell tale traces of breath evident from her own breathing in the chilly night air. All rather impressive for a creature of such ridiculous size. It was then that she began to notice all the things her mind had been too preoccupied to see before: the black spittle oozing from the creature's mouth was frozen above the ground, its drip somehow suspended. The creature's mask, once a marvelous and perfect white, was speckled with the same small emerald flecks of moss and lichen that grew on the tile it gripped, and its enormous talons were even more so covered with the stuff. Its sparkling ruby eyes seemed dulled, as if the creature was asleep or in a far away land that only it could see, and, even more peculiar, the way the brows arched and the jaw opened suggested something astonishingly human in nature: the creature seemed to be _scared_. Was that possible? Could grimm feel fear? And even more terrifying, what could possibly have caused a creature of such obvious and immense power to be, of all things, _scared?_ Curiously, she followed the thing's gaze over to the edge opposite the creature, but there was nothing there. Only the howling wind and distant stars obscured by the cloudy night sky greeted her.

That's probably for the best, she figured, anything that could terrify a grimm this size and then somehow _freeze_ _it in place_ was not something she wanted to be near.

With a grunt, Pyrrha turned to continue examining her surroundings, and she froze. She knew this place. It was her last memory before the dark had claimed her, imprisoned her. She had _died_ here. But if she had died here...how was she back? With ever quicker and shallower breaths Pyrrha raised her hands before her face. Aside from the intense trembling born from the realization that she was within spitting distance of the very spot that an arrow had entered her chest and burned away her life, they appeared perfectly normal. Which raised the question: did she die? Was that seemingly eternal torture in the dark the afterlife? Or something else? If she had died and was now standing where she was then... oh gods, was she a ghost?

With panicking breaths and a reeling mind she desperately ran towards one of the smaller, rusted cogs lying on the floor; it couldn't have been bigger than a rat, and with all the force her body could muster she kicked it. Predictably, the tiny thing went flying off the side of the tower as soon as her foot connected with it, and with a breath of relief she sighed. That was good right? She could touch things, exert force, that meant she wasn't a ghost...right? But, she had heard stories and seen movies where ghosts could interact with objects, that was a common thing, wasn't it? But in all of those stories the ghosts weren't able to be seen by people. People! That's it! She needed to find someone and see if they could see her, and she knew just the person to help, a blond, his name was...was...what was his name? _Wait_ , waitwaitiwaitwait _no._ What was his name?! Gasping, she stumbled backwards and fell against the hard tile with a thud. She remembered bright blond hair, deep sapphire eyes, and a goofy smile that warmed her heart, but _what was his name?!_ She was panicking now, that was for sure, her breath coming in ragged gasps as her vision began to blur from tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

She kept seeing faces in her mind, some sharp and clear, though none as clear as the blond boy's, but others were blurry, faded, distorted images of faces where only a features could be seen: a strip of pink hair in a sea of black, deep sky-blue eyes with a shock of short orange hair, short black hair with red tips that framed a small and distorted face with glistening silver eyes, another blond, though this one was female, with a cowlick of hair perched on her head and eyes that shifted from lilac to a deep crimson, pale white hair with eyes cold and blue, and deep black hair with a large, and equally black, bow perched atop. But _who were they?!_ She could feel emotions with each face, happiness, trust, comfort and-wait. There was another. It was similar to the other redhead, but in the hair was nestled a pink bow, and the eyes glistened a deep green instead of blue, and this one was so much more clear, almost as clear as the blond boy's. But for all the wrong reasons; where she had seen the blond's smiling face and sapphire eyes she felt nothing but joy and comfort, but this face, this face formed ice in her stomach. It stared back at her with empty, dilated green eyes, accusing her. There was guilt, so much guilt that it stopped her mind as suddenly as if she were struck. She was shocked and choking on her gasps. She slammed her eyes shut and screwed them together, trying to conjure up the face of the blond who made her feel so _safe_ ; anything to get away from those empty eyes that filled her with guilt. But that only ended in sobbing.

She knew she was close to these people, but that only made her more terrified when she realized that she couldn't remember their _names_. Desperately, she searched her brain, there were moments that were clear, most with the blond boy and two others, the one with a green shirt and black hair, and the shorter redhead that she desperately tried to separate from the other with the pink bow. She could see the blond boy placing his hand on hers, them resting together in the autumn sun, she could see the redhead knocking four other kids out of some sort of an arena with a hammer much too large for her frame, she could see the black haired boy quietly making pancakes for them all with a green apron that made her chuckle, but the further back she went the more muddled and distorted the images became. Eventually, they were all just wisps of colored smoke chattering in dissonant tones that she could not understand.

She continued to sob, but the tears stopped coming. And, after a while, even the sobs stopped, and it was quiet. Just her, the howling wind, and the frozen dragon atop a ruined tower that used to be her grave.

 _Used to be_.

Her eyes shot open at the suddenness and ease of the words and all they represented. She had died here, or maybe she hadn't and she was just sent somewhere else, but she was here _now_. With hardening eyes and calming breaths Pyrrha Nikos rose up from the spot where she had spent several hours, judging by the new height of the moon, and surveyed the tower before her as a new face came to mind. One with burning amber eyes, raven hair, and a fire red dress, and with it came so much _hate_. She had never hated anyone before, at least she didn't think she had, but this face was different. This was the face of the woman who had killed her, submitted her to the torturous grasp of the dark and, much more importantly, had hurt her friends.

Her fists unconsciously clenched at her side as the rage suddenly filled her. This place _used to be_ her grave, but no longer. She was given a chance, and she would _not_ squander it. She would find that raven haired woman with that _damned_ bow, and she would _hurt_ her, as much as she had hurt the faces that filled her memory. Pyrrha Nikos looked at the frozen dragon behind her one last time before she turned on her heel and stalked towards the elevator that would take her down from her grave. Ironic that she would be coming down rather than climbing out, she thought.

Unsurprisingly, the elevator no longer worked; a giant dragon resting on the top and a battle raging below tended to make maintenance seem less important. Luckily however, the doors barring the shaft were no longer in place. She peered down the hole, dark and foreboding, with no elevators themselves in sight, but the cable suspending one was still there. Backing up some to get a running start, she raced forwards and leapt to grab the cable, easily reaching it. The descent was long and tedious, potentially fatal, yes, but still tedious. Shimmy down the cable endlessly; occasionally push aside those empty green eyes that filled her with guilt and shimmy some more. She wondered if the battle for Beacon was still raging outside, but doubted it. She had been on the top of that tower for hours and not heard a single sound of battle: no guns firing, swords clashing with claws, no Grimm roaring challenges or victory calls, nothing but the eerie silence of the night.

It wasn't until she neared the ground floor, or at least what she thought was the ground floor, that things started to get interesting. There were two elevator cars smashed together directly below her, while the doors leading out to the ground floor were forced open and inwards by something that must've been immensely powerful. The elevators themselves were crunched and crushed, their ceilings, or what remained of them, ending about three or so feet below the top of the ground floor doors. Just enough space for her to crawl through. However, there was one minor problem: the cable itself was sheared off, the frayed end of it dangling about fifteen feet above the smashed "floor" that the elevators provided. But, to Pyrrha's mind, this was hardly a problem at all; she was a huntress, well a huntress in training but still, and she had dropped much further than this; she even vaguely recalled being launched off a cliff.

So, without a second thought, she let go of the cable and fell to the elevator roofs, but something went wrong. The force of her landing from fifteen feet should've been nothing with her aura, but that was not the case. The force was lessened it's true, but not nearly as much as it should've been, and, caught off guard, her landing went somewhat wrong. A sharp pain exploded through her ankle, followed by an equally explosive, and shocked gasp from her mouth. Her right side collapsed and she found herself in a half sitting, half kneeling position favoring her right side. What just happened? That wasn't right at all, the force of that fall should've been _nothing_ , but the deep throbbing in her ankle told her otherwise. Gingerly, careful not to put too much weight on her impossibly wounded ankle, she crawled through the ground floor doors and out into what was once the lobby of Beacon Academy.

The place was ruined, a smashed reception desk lay to her left while dilapidated and crumbling walls covered in vines and moss and full of shattered windows formed the crumbling shell of the room. Directly in front of her was the once grand doorway that led out to the courtyard. Its grandeur was somewhat lessened however, clogged as it was with a tremendous amount of rubble. To her left and right hallways stretched, linking the main tower to other key complexes of the school. Some lights still clung desperately to the ceiling with their wiring, but most were empty and shattered across the ground. It was beautiful, in a morbid sort of way, like an abandoned building or monument, but the pain that filled her as she looked around at the once grand lobby overshadowed the beauty, leaving only a dull lust for the way things used to be.

The steady throbbing of her ankle forced her attention back to her injury. Carefully, though still gritting her teeth in pain as she did, she slid her right boot off her foot to examine it. Her ankle was a flare of deep blue and browns on her pale skin, but there were no bones protruding, so that was good. Definitely badly rolled or sprained, but not terribly shattered. The real question though was if it was broken. She stood up as slowly as she could, heavily favoring her left side as she did, before experimentally placing her right foot down, the rule she had always heard was that if it could bear even some weight then it wasn't broken, but if it collapsed, or the pain was too unbearable for even the smallest pressure, then it was time to put the thing in a cast.

She grit her teeth in frustration as she began to ease her foot towards the floor in a test; this was definitely _not_ a good start, but even more pressing was the fact that this _should not have happened at all_. Her aura should've protected her, she hadn't been in a fight or taken any blows, and the trip out of the dark hadn't winded her or left her with that familiar foreboding emptiness and exhaustion that alerted her that her aura was drained. She had felt sore, true, but not nearly bad enough to the point where a fifteen foot fall would cause her this level of damage; even more to the point was the fact that she had been up on the tower doing nothing but emotionally exhausting herself for hours. Surely that should've been enough time for any aura depletion she may have suffered to be fixed, right? A lance of fear shot through her chest as her hand moved to touch the spot on her abdomen where the darkness had pierced her, that was the only thing that could've caused this. Her immeasurable torture at the "hands" of the darkness. But she was fine, wasn't she? She looked normal, her hands were still her hands, and her foot was still her foot, no new scars or blemishes to point towards torture, everything was completely _perfect_.

A familiar dagger of pain shot through her leg as it reminded her that everything was, in fact, not perfect. But nor was it terrible, her foot could bear some weight, which meant it wasn't broken; that was good news. She still had to favor her left side tremendously, but at least she wasn't immobile. Taking solace in that weak reassurance she knelt down and, through the pain, tied her boot back on her right foot. Tightening the laces and gritting her teeth before gingerly standing back up and limping around to face her surroundings. It was only then that she noticed the glowing red eyes and ivory-white mask and spikes of an Alpha Beowulf staring back at her from the right hallway.

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 **Boom, two Grimm in two chapters; we (and by 'we' I mean 'I') here at TIC like to really keep up the action packed adventures. /end sarcasm**

 **Don't worry though, stuff is getting setup to go down** _ **hard**_ **. Chapter Four will be the beginning of that, though I may end up merging three and four since three is kinda short, so who knows?**

 ** **9/9/2016, 1:14pm: Updated Chapter 2 format, sliced down/split up my paragraphs to a much more easy-to-handle length. As of now, Ch. 12 has been finalized, though I'm rewriting some of 9 to make the battle seem more intense/awesome/longer/etc. It is the conclusion to this first arc after all so you guys deserve some quality payoff. Again, if anyone wants to help brainstorm ideas for this story or any of my others just message me, I'd love the company/help. Have a good one!****

 ** **9/12/2016, 9:38pm: "Eery" changed to the correct "eerie." Don't know how I missed that, shoutout to RemnantSoul for pointing it out, thanks!****


	3. Objectives Updated

For the second time today Pyrrha Nikos found herself uncomfortably close to those universal glowing red eyes of Grimm. And for the second time today her body instinctively reacted without thinking; this time attempting to launch herself towards the left, behind the cover of the crushed and splintered receptionist's desk. Her mind suddenly became aware of her body's attempted evasion when pain exploded through her right ankle.

When her body had tried to launch her to the left, most of the needed force would have to come from an intense push off from her right foot, and her right ankle was barely capable of being walked on at the moment. Her powerful and graceful leap turned into a pain filled flop as her whole right leg simply gave out underneath her. She was brought down to one knee from the collapse, but still would not take her eyes off the creature on her right. She could evade if it charged, though for how long she wasn't sure, and without her weapons she wasn't sure she had the firepower to kill it, disabling punches and kicks were all well and good to human opponents that had a pain threshold, but Grimm never seemed to have picked up on the concept of "this hurts too much."

Warily, she eyed the beast before her, waiting for the inevitable strike. Being on the defensive was not something she enjoyed, but it would be necessary here. She waited, the Alpha waited, she stared, the Alpha stared back, slowly cocking its head to the side, its ears perking up in a questioning manner eerily similar to a regular, non-murderous dog. Its nose eagerly sniffed the air as its eyes scanned her body. The hate in those red orbs was overcome with a brief flash of confusion before shifting to something resembling...recognition? With a satisfied gleam in its ruby eyes it looked her over once more before turning around and walking back down the hallway.

Pyrrha could only blink in astonishment, an _Alpha_ _Beowulf_ had just caught her completely off guard, injured, unarmed, with an almost non-existent aura, and it had simply _walked away_. That doesn't make sense. It had to have known how vulnerable she was, she was easy prey and she knew it, _it knew it_ , but it had just turned around and walked away.

 _What?!_

Her mind raced to understand what had just happened as she pushed herself to her feet, careful to avoid placing any excess weight on her ankle. Maybe it hadn't seen her? No, it had known exactly where she was, the two had stared each other down; it had looked her over, and based on its sniffing, had smelled her too. Maybe it didn't want to fight? No, that was equally ridiculous, the more ancient and intelligent grimm were cautious it's true, and while it was an Alpha it was still a Beowulf, and they weren't known for taciturn reluctance or calculation. And even if it was an ancient Grimm, or an unusually cautious Beowulf it still would've attacked the clearly alone, clearly unarmed, _clearly injured_ human lying before it; she might as well have been served up on a platter to the thing. Maybe we should just be glad we're alive and move on, a soft voice inside her mind whispered as she began to limp towards the hallway on her left. She was definitely glad to be alive, that was true, but she _needed_ to know why the Alpha had just left her alone, Grimm just didn't do that.

As she limped down the hallway illuminated only by the silvery light of the moon peeking through the shattered remains of windows the question of what exactly just happened gnawed away at her. The only thing that kept it from consuming all her thought was the steady throbbing of her ankle and the ever growing feeling of exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her. She needed to rest, needed to sleep, needed to close her eyes and give her mind the break it hadn't had in what felt like years. She wasn't sure where exactly she would find a place to rest here, but she knew from the memories that she could understand that Beacon had dorm rooms somewhere. She vaguely recalled them being located on the side of campus that she was currently in, but didn't entirely trust her foggy memory, especially so when coupled with her wounded ankle and growing exhaustion. Worst comes to worst she could just find a closet to collapse in or a classroom desk to sleep under.

The more she walked the more in shambles Beacon seemed to be. She remembered that the battle had been brutal and far reaching, but roaming the rubble of the once majestic academy was something else. She couldn't remember if Vale or Beacon had taken the brunt of the invasion, but she did know that they were both heavily damaged. That point seemed to be only further emphasized as she made her way through the once grand corridors of Beacon, whole doors that led to nowhere where walls and floors had crumbled, patches of silver stars glistening through holes where the ceiling had succumbed to the elements, broken glass coating the floor and crunching underneath her boots, flora steadily encroaching throughout all of the buildings. No one had made an effort to return to in force or fix Beacon in, well, however long it had been, certainly a while if the overgrowth was any way of telling. Seeing her second home like this hurt, though her mind couldn't seem to decide what to do with the hurt. Part of her just felt hollow, and the other side, the side that burned for vengeance, just grew in its fury.

She knew she'd found the dorms when, past a door that had been somehow removed over twenty feet from its frame, she could see the remnants of a bed, headboard, mattress, and all. Her body desperately wished that her mind would allow it to just walk up to it and just collapse, but the tactical side of her mind was reluctant to rest in a room that had no door. Call her paranoid, but she didn't want to fall asleep in a ruin with the door open where a Grimm could spot her sleeping.

Luckily, before she collapsed on the spot from exhaustion, she found a room that suited her mind's needs as a slight safe haven: the door still remained on it's hinges, though there was no way she was going to be able to operate it stealthily or without a little extra force with how rusted the hinges were. There was one good mattress and bed frame still in the room despite it being half covered by another bed that seemed to have fallen from above. Technically, there were two beds that seemed okay, but she didn't trust the other one, what with it being suspended from the ceiling by fraying ropes and all. And the way that the other bed lay across her chosen one provided cover for her sleeping form, blocking it from the immediate view of the doorway; she could, very literally, live with the somewhat cramped space between the wall and the fallen bed when it had the benefit of cover. With a literal sigh of relief from her mouth and a figurative one from her ankle she collapsed into the cramped spot and almost instantly passed out.

The next thing she realized she was staring at a faded beige wallpaper pattern that somehow still managed to angrily reflect the sun's morning rays right back into her eyes. With a reluctant groan she managed to force her body into a sitting position. With a rested mind and a lit room she could finally study her surroundings. A bed was suspended by ropes from the ceiling on her right, an Achieve Men poster hung from where the collapsed bed once was above her, books lined shelves that were coated in cobwebs, and a stitched together drape that must've once been cut in half flapped in the breeze of the rightmost window.

Wait. This was her friends' room! Faces flashed before her memory, silver eyes and a red hood, a black bow and amber eyes, flowing blond hair with lilac eyes, and pale white hair with glacial eyes. Still no names came with the faces, but suddenly more memories grew in clarity, the time they all had lunch together at the Vytal Festival, classes together where they had struggled to stay awake, and a vague recollection of a lunchtime brawl. Wait - the room across the hall!

Rising from her bed in a careful rush she limped towards the door and forced it open. She _needed_ to see the room across the hall, that...that was her room wasn't it? Her team's room? She knew that something, anything, there would help her remember, help her understand, and she'd be lying if it wouldn't provide a small amount of comfort to see it again. With a desperate heave she threw the familiar door open, only to almost fall to her death.

Where her room had been there was nothing but open air and piles of rubble far below. This entire portion of the building had somehow collapsed, below she could see some floors bravely jutting out a few feet farther than hers, but they too eventually led to nowhere. Her room, her one link to remembering the name of the blond boy, of her team, had crumbled into the rubble below.

No, nonono, why?! She hobbled back to her friends' room as fast as she could, this wasn't fair. This wasn't _fair_ , the first real lead she could've had and it _collapsed_.

 _CRACK,_ she kicked the already failing bed frame of the collapsed bed in frustration, sending chunks of rotting wood across the room like shrapnel. She needed to break something. Furiously, she began to beat the walls with the bottom of her fists. She was _so close_. She screamed before collapsing back onto the bed and just staring out the shattered remains of the windows. Emerald eyes could see the ruined grounds before her, but she didn't acknowledge any information her eyes gave her. All she wanted was to remember them, she felt so lost, so alone, and the faces she saw in her memories, especially the blond's, were the only thing that really brought her peace. She felt like a part of her was missing without them, and in a very real way she supposed that was true. Was she really Pyrrha Nikos if she couldn't remember her closest friends? Could only remember geography, names of cities and countries, but nothing close to her save for images and emotions.

She lost herself in those thoughts for a while, only being pulled out of them by a glint of sparkling light off in the distance. What was that? It was moving fast with two other glints in a steady descent towards the far away city. Bullheads. She shot up out of her stupor, her face flinching in pain as she accidentally placed more weight on her right ankle. Were there still people in Vale?

The Bullheads moved steadily towards what seemed like the docks and upper class district, on the far side from Beacon closest to the ocean, and as the bullheads descended, five more rose steadily from behind the buildings and flew off over in the direction of Forever Fall. A smile spread across her face, people must've survived the battle, and they were _so close_. A day or so's walk, but still, that was nothing compared to the payoff of actually getting to talk to someone again. Not to mention the tiny fragment of hope that the people there could help her piece together her memories, put names to the faces in her mind, and maybe then things would become clearer.

With a determined look set on her face Pyrrha Nikos moved towards the door and out of her friends' dorm, she'd have to apologize to them for breaking things even more than they were, she felt bad about that, despite Beacon already being in shambles. In spite of the minor guilt however, she couldn't stop a smile from spreading across her face. She had a goal in mind now, a path, something to push towards. She was going into Vale and she was going to find whoever was there.

* * *

 **A/N: Decided to keep three and four separate, it'll take longer to get to the action this way and I'm sorry about that, I know the story is very slow at the moment. But, at the same time, I can't afford to merge any more chapters with how my schedule is looking by the time I release ten. Got a lot going on then and I want to maintain this weekly update schedule for as long as I can.**

 **Anyway! Pyrrha has an obtainable goal now! Something to push away the thoughts of what** _ **exactly**_ **that Alpha Beowulf was doing. But don't worry, you'll get an explanation for that in about two chapters. I'm sure most of you guys will already have a sneaking suspicion as to why it did what it did, but Pyrrha doesn't know, and that's what matters.**

 **Got lots of reviews asking me to break up my paragraphs more, I know a wall of text can be intimidating. Tried to do that here, but do let me know whether or not I succeeded. That should be it for now, I'll try to respond personally to all the reviews I can, but tonight is date night so I may not be able to.**

 **Also found out "rightmost" was one word today, who knew? Probably most of you, but still.**

 **Have a good one guys/gals/people/androids!**


	4. Chance Encounters

Vale had been hit _hard._ She knew that, factually, it'd be hard not to when you're watching the place get destroyed by Grimm, though admittedly her attention has been more focused on Beacon at the time. But it was one thing to know that Vale was hit hard, and another altogether to _experience_ it.

Of course she wasn't in Vale at the time it was hit, she was in massive floating coliseum, then Beacon, then, well, she wasn't quite sure about after that. Dead seemed, simultaneously, the most likely and unlikely scenario; after all, if she had come back was she ever truly dead? Her potential mortality aside, slogging through the Residential and Eastern Commercial District to get to the Western Commercial and Industrial Districts and experiencing the sheer devastation of it all along the way really hammered home the suffering.

Burned out, abandoned, and crushed cars clogged the streets, making it near impossible to navigate them. The buildings, once proud and organized, sprawled across the sidewalks and streets in the form of rubble. Some buildings' facades remained standing, but when you peered through the empty windows you could see that all the wooden intestines of the place had been reduced to ashes. A few buildings seemed to have remained intact, save for some broken windows here and there, and evidence of tremendous forced entry as the doors lay where they broke in splintered heaps as Grimm had poured through them. But those were few and far between.

The alleyways were littered with trash and overgrowth, and no small amount of bloodstains either. All the bodies had long since been consumed, either by the Grimm or by the maggots and worms that birthed in them. But it was harder to remove bloodstains, they clung determinedly to where their owners had fallen, the only grave markers in this dilapidated ruin. And Dust, was there a lot of them. They were a faded black, indistinguishable from a wine stain save for the telltale splatter or pooling; it seemed she could hardly walk a few feet without encountering one or two, or families of them.

It made sense, she supposed, Vale was an extremely densely populated area, and everything had happened so fast. What surprised her was the lack of bones anywhere in sight, there may be piles of them in the buildings, but there were none visible on the street. She guessed that the people and hunters still clinging to life in the western side of the city had gathered most of them for a mass grave or something, that or the Grimm ate the bones as well. The first scenario, however unlikely, raised the question of exactly how long she had been...gone.

It wasn't an easy task to gather so many bones, nor would it be a quick one, especially with all the Grimm in the area. So she had to have been gone for a while for so many of them to be, she assumed, collected. That or eaten by Grimm, and they raised the most peculiar, and most frightening questions inside her.

She saw many, many, _many_ Grimm on her trudge Westward through what remained of the city, and every time she saw one it would ignore her. Well, that wasn't entirely true: the Alphas, Majors, and Ancient Grimm would examine her curiously with that cold intelligence hidden behind their gleaming red eyes, and every time they would end with a hint of recognition and continue about their business. The smaller, younger Grimm would mostly completely ignore her, incapable of the dangerous curiosity and intellect that the older, more powerful ones possessed.

That frightened her; all through her life she had been told Grimm existed solely to destroy Humanity, and there was no evidence to the contrary. They didn't eat unless it was a human, they spent their entire lives dedicated to killing as many humans as possible, their most basic instincts drove them towards every negative emotion that humanity generated. Yet here she was, a lone human limping through their territory, and not a single one even gave a hint of aggressive behavior. Not so much as a growl.

Her mind settled on two scenarios: either something was wrong, or right depending on how you looked at it, with the Grimm, or something was wrong with her that made them recognize her as one of their own. She desperately hoped it was the former. It had to be right? She suddenly stopped in her tracks as she studied her hands with the intensity one would find in someone defusing a bomb. They were her hands, exactly as she remembered them...weren't they? They were pale in complexion and the palms were calloused from years of training, every line and scar and freckle was exactly as she remembered; they were her hands, human hands, she knew that. But still the question of "what if" ate away at her as she marched on.

The pain in her leg had receded somewhat, and she was capable of walking on it effectively, though she doubted her ability to run or fight on it. She wouldn't be helpless, but she wouldn't be at the top of her game either, in fact she'd be closer to the bottom what with whatever was wrong with her aura and all.

Wait.

She stopped moving again as she considered something: something was wrong with her aura, that much was apparent; she didn't have nearly the amount she used to, once she got her hands on a scroll she thought she could examine exactly how much, but she knew that it was significant. As if that wasn't frightening enough, she suddenly considered something that she hadn't thought of before: if something was wrong with her aura, did that mean something was wrong with her semblance as well?

In a desperate test she turned towards one of the crushed cars near her on the road to her right, reaching out her hand she willed the door to rip off its hinges and come to her; child's play next to what she could've done, _did_ do on Beacon Tower. The door only wiggled slightly in response, she panicked, pouring all her desperation into _willing_ her semblance to function. _Please,_ she pleaded _please please please please_. But the door wouldn't budge, only wiggle and creak as if it was taunting her newfound inability. This can't be happening, please don't let this be happening.

A whirlwind of emotions swirled inside her: anger, sadness, desperation, panic, frustration, none of them were positive. And why should they be? Here she was, once a champion huntress-in-training, now reduced to almost civilian levels of aura manipulation and semblance use. She still had her training, her analytical mind, years of experience under her belt, but all those years had been spent training and fighting with her aura and semblance, what did it mean for her abilities, for her as a huntress, to barely be able to use them?

Her vision began to swim and her head began to feel light, her body threatening topple over. She was panicking, hyperventilating, she needed to stop. But she couldn't. What if this was permanent? What did that mean for who she was? She couldn't place names to any of her closest friends, and now she may not be able to help them in the fight. She would be left behind, useless, discarded.

Ironically, it wasn't the thought of her friends that stirred determination within her heart and calmness in her mind, but rather the thought of her enemies. The thought of the raven haired woman with burning eyes and how she would hurt her, _break_ her. And how she would love every second of it. The aura and semblance issue was a temporary one, it _had to be_ , and if it wasn't...well...she didn't know what she'd do, but she would find a way, train harder, fight faster, she would _certainly_ find a way. She had come back for a reason, it was her destiny to, and her destiny now was to hurt those that had hurt the ones she cared for.

The closer she got to the Western side of the city the less prevalent the destruction seemed: the buildings here weren't as overgrown, fewer automobile corpses jammed the streets, more intact buildings on the whole remained, though, given that this was the Industrial District the place had looked like a warzone long before the Grimm had invaded. And of course that wasn't to say there was no destruction, bloodstains still coated the sidewalks and alleyways, and there were more shattered windows and blown apart doors than intact ones. Collapsed walls and roofs were still common, but less so. She was definitely getting closer to the settlement or base or whatever the inhabitants here would call it.

Even the Grimm that were so common when she first entered the city from Beacon on the East became more scattered and rare. Those she did see were all young and small, none of the older, powerful, and more cautious Grimm were near, which meant she was nearing the threat they so cautiously avoided. That was good, she had made progress, and looking at the sun that was low in the sky she figured she should find a place to rest soon. It wouldn't do well to sneak up on these people at night, especially when she had such a small amount of aura that it probably wouldn't stop any accidental friendly fire.

Scanning from left to right she tried to find a suitable building. In her immediate surroundings there were a total of three buildings that appeared like they wouldn't collapse on her while she slept. Two were warehouses, while the last seemed to be a tenement building. Feeling somewhat partial to having an actual bed again she decided on the tenement.

The lobby floor seemed remarkably intact despite the obvious claw marks and gouges in the wood that indicated where Grimm had made handholds in the wood. The stairs were less untouched, already dilapidated and low quality, the weight and rage of the Grimm had left whole landings missing, breaking through steps on their mad rush to get inside and slaughter. Her tactical side wanted a commanding view of the surrounding area; better to see your enemies before they see you and all that. The top floor would be best for such a view, she decided, leaning over the railing and looking up the tower of stairs as she did so. She certainly had a climb ahead of her, which gave her plenty of time to examine every gouge and bloodstain on the wooden surface. The seventh floor landing seemed particularly brutal, based off the damage it looked like some brave souls had tried to make a last stand, attempting to bar the Grimm from getting to their families. There was no banister left to speak of, and the wood of the landing and that of the hallway she could see was solidly soaked in a coat of dried blood with brittle flakes. She didn't think they lasted long.

The final, ninth floor was her stop. There was surprisingly little damage up here, as well as blood for that matter. The wallpaper was peeling and faded, but that was the fault of the elements not the Grimm. She even went door to door for once, not door frame to door frame. It seemed that most of the people on the top floor had tried to escape the building, and were slaughtered on the floors below or in the streets outside as the floor was almost devoid of blood.

The rooms themselves were pitifully small, as one would expect in a tenement in the Industrial District. Each one was cramped, every nook and cranny was occupied with items or shelves, and almost all of them looked just as they had when she figured their owners had attempted to flee. Some had drawers and cabinets open where they had tried to gather what provisions they had, others had clothes strewn across the floor while still ticking clocks clung to the wall. One even had a smattering of broken glass from what must've been a valuable something or other at one point. She hoped they made it, but the odds of such a thing seemed infinitesimally small.

In almost every room there were pictures and posters, windows to the lives of people she didn't know. Smiling families together dressed in threadbare clothes eminent of their housing, single photos of boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, and all the others tugged at her. Though it was the photos of the smaller children that tore at her heart the most, almost all of these people had surely died. She hoped that the pictures were from relatives far away or that they were old and the children had had a chance to enjoy their life before it was taken from them, but something told her that wasn't likely.

It was on about the fourth or fifth room that she realized a pattern, every person in the photos was a Faunus. That made sense she supposed, that this tenement would be almost solely occupied by Faunus, society didn't typically give them favorable cards in terms of job opportunities or education, nor did they give them lots of mobility. She wondered if the White Fang considered the Faunus that once lived here to be allies or not, wondered if they saw their gruesome deaths as acceptable losses for their new world order. If any had escaped the slaughter in the tenement, how much more they would be looked down upon for the White Fang's actions in Vale?

The last room was different from the others, that much was obvious from it not having a door. The inside of the room was dyed almost black from all the faded blood that stained the walls and floor, even the ceiling. The furniture was smashed, the walls scarred, and all the windows shattered. It seemed that while everyone else had tried to escape, one family, this family, had stayed behind. Whether they had a choice or not didn't seem to matter. Morbid curiosity took over as she wandered deeper into the room, she wasn't sure what exactly she was looking for, if anything at all, but still she explored.

There was a single photo in the room that wasn't shredded, it was blotched with blood so the right half was covered, but she figured there were about three or so forms on that side from what she could make out. On the left was a woman who appeared to be in her mid forties or so, with antlers erupting from the top of her matted brown hair that was streaked with grey. She smiled at the camera with that mom smile that said she desperately hoped this would be the one photo where everyone had their eyes open and smiles wide, a photo she could save on a shelf. Judging by the fact that she had found it on a shelf it seemed her wish was fulfilled. On her right she gripped the shoulders of two children, one almost rivaling his mother in height, if she counted his larger antlers, protruding through his equally brown and unruly mess of hair.

She wondered absentmindedly if Faunus counted their appendages when it came to height. She thought it would be rude to ask.

He had brown eyes, freckles, a small nose, and a forced smile that said he'd rather be anywhere else than taking a family photo. The other child the mother held before her was much smaller, perhaps only coming up to her waist in height. Her antlers were tiny, budding things, barely visible above the disheveled curls of her brown hair. Her blue eyes were brimming with excitement, and the photo seemed to have caught her mid hop. Her smile was wide and missing a few teeth, and in her arms she clutched a tiny, ragged doll with cat ears that looked ready to fall apart from the years of wear and tear only small children can provide.

Softly, she set the photo back down on the ruined shelf, wondering how many had been here when the Grimm had come; based on the amount of blood it had to have been all of them. She turned to leave the room, but before she could she spied a small ragged lump on the floor. For a brief, horrifying second she thought it may have been left over entrails or bones, but upon closer inspection it was something far more tragic. It was the little girls' doll, lying in the left corner by the door, its cotton fur crusted and dyed black with dried blood. She couldn't even tell what the thing was, it was humanoid, but the blood obscured the face, and the only distinguishing features were two small lumps atop the head, seeing as it belonged to a Faunus it made sense that doll was also made to look like one.

Her hands moved as if she were handling fire dust as she went to pick the delicate thing up. It stuck to the floor at first, and for a second the blood refused to yield, before giving in a shower of flakes that chipped and floated off. She didn't know why, but it felt wrong to leave the thing in this tomb. Careful not to tear off one of the fragile limbs, she tucked it into her sash and rushed out as quickly as she could from the tiny slaughterhouse.

Making her way to the opposite side of the floor she found the room furthest away from the tomb and collapsed on the nearest bed after slamming the door shut behind her. She sobbed. She sobbed for the little girl who couldn't have been older than nine before she was disemboweled and eaten by Grimm, she sobbed for the boy who didn't look older than her friends, she sobbed for the mother who knew her children would die and could do nothing to save them, she sobbed for the three unknown forms covered in blood who had died in there too. She sobbed for the ones who fought on the landing, she sobbed for those who died in the streets, she sobbed for herself, and for the redheaded girl with the pink bow that she knew she had done something terrible to.

Slowly her throat began to unclench, her breaths steadied, and her once taut muscles loosened. Wearily unscrewing her eyes she glanced out the window, and the blackness of the sky told her it must be night by now. She didn't know how long she cried for, and didn't really care. When her emotions finally released her and her mind returned she found herself searching the peeling white paint of the ceiling, trying to find the sweet release of sleep, but all she could see were the empty silhouettes of those that had died.

She didn't remember falling asleep, nor did she remember any dreams she may have had in the night. The light filtering in from the window that just cresting the buildings and the brilliant orange of the morning sky told her it was early. But it wasn't the early morning beams of the sun that had so quickly woken her and placed her instinctively on edge, no, it was the screech of steel on bone, the howling of Grimm in pain, and the stern shouts of command coming from below her in the tenement.

Someone was here, and they were fighting.

Immediately she leapt from the bed, her heart was screaming in joy, but her mind was on edge. There were people here, and her heart said that was good, fantastic even, she had been making her way towards the only evidence of living people in Vale she could find for a day now. Her mind was more hesitant, she would've liked to have seen the people she was approaching before she interacted with them, preferably from far away where they couldn't see her, she couldn't risk running into White Fang without her weapons, semblance, or aura to rely on. The sounds of battle died slowly beneath her and were replaced with the distant thudding of feet as they made their way up the stairs.

"I don't think this building has anything in it Doctor, are you sure it's worth our time?" That voice...she knew that voice. She wasn't sure from where or why, but she was certain she had heard it somewhere before. And...well it made her angry. Something about that voice stirred up anger and annoyance within her, nothing on the level of the raven haired woman, but she definitely didn't like whoever it was ascending the stairs.

"Now, now, Mr. Winchester, I think you'll find that sometimes the rarest treasures lay in the most unlikely of places, come come now! We haven't got all day, have we?" Another voice spoke.

Winchester! Her mind reeled as she processed the name, a face appearing before her with a stereotypical heroically square jawline, deep purple-blue eyes and a cruel smile. She didn't like this Winchester fellow, though the exact memories of why were still infuriatingly fuzzy and out of reach. And the other voice, the jumbled and rambling one, she knew that one as well! Dust, where had she heard it before?! She remembered an immense respect, but also mild frustration and slight boredom. Who were these people?!

"Looks like some of them tried to make a stand here, poor bastards." That was Winchester again, what did he-the seventh floor landing! They were only two floors below her! What did she do? She couldn't very well jump out the ninth floor window, but nor could she descend down the stairs, the people in the building with her were fighters, that much she knew from when she had woken up. and there must've been five of them, she remembered a team having four people, plus whoever was accompanying them with the frustratingly out of reach voice. Five on one was not good odds, but if she knew these people, and her mind told her she did, then she shouldn't have to fight them, right? What was the risk of saying hello?

"Mr. Winchester if you would take your team and search the top floor, I will be one below on the eighth, and do call me if you find something interesting this time." She froze, well looks like her mind had been made up for her on that front. The only question was how to greet them: she couldn't hide, she'd never been good at stealth like the black haired Faunus girl or the green clothed boy. She was a warri- _wait._ Where did that come from?! How did she remember they were good at stealth? And how did she remember the black haired girl was a Faunus? _No no no, please don't fade I need to know more, what were your names?!_ Her mind was reeling from the overflow of information, thinking she might fall over she gripped the doorframe of her room and leaned against it heavily while clutching her head. It was because of this mental turmoil that she didn't hear the sounds of footsteps crest the landing, nor the sound of them making their way down the left side of the floor's hallway and directly to her room at the end of the hall. She didn't hear them freeze upon seeing her, or the startled and shaken gasps they loosed. In fact, the only thing that shocked her back to reality was their shouting.

"What on Remnant is that?!" She jolted upright at the sound of the unfamiliar voice so uncomfortably close to her; two boys were no more than twenty feet down the hallway, the other two must've been searching the rooms at the opposite end of the hall. The two near her were Winchester and one of his teammates with a trimmed short Mohawk. Winchester's face was different from her memories though, his hair was no longer neatly trimmed short but instead somewhat overgrown and frazzled, he had the beginnings of a beard clinging to his face in a five-o-clock-shadow sort of way. But most different of all was that the gleam of cruelty she had remembered in his eyes was gone, replaced with a deep regret and no small amount of fury. That fury grew larger as he stared at her, though exactly why she couldn't comprehend. She knew they weren't on the best of terms but this...this was _hate_.

"Doctor Oobleck," Winchester shouted as he drew his mace, "We found something you'll want to see."

* * *

 **A/N: And we've met our first person, errr…people, group, what have you! Four chapters in and we finally get some actual dialogue, about time, huh?**

 **I'm uploading this a day early because I'm road-tripping down to see family tomorrow and don't exactly trust in my ability to proofread/upload after that.**

 **Only one chapter away from the (admittedly quite obvious) twist! (I guess "reveal" or "confirmation" would be more apt that "twist") I bet the majority of you already know it's coming, but hopefully it's delivery will make up for my heavy-handed foreshadowing and hinting.**

 **Finished Chapter Eleven two days ago and am now halfway through Chapter Twelve, but the two sort of go hand in hand. When I release 11 I'll probably have to update the rating; detailing the disemboweling of Grimm is all well and good, but I don't feel comfortable describing those same things happening to humans on a T rating. Do tell me whether or not you agree with that however.**

 **In other news we're a little beneath halfway through our first arc, not in wordcount, but in chapter numbers. Chapter 9 is the end of our first "arc" as it were.**

 **That's all for today boys, girls, and Zenyatta, have a good one!**


	5. Face to Face

Pyrrha's body tensed as the boy drew the massive mace slung to his back, yet for some reason he didn't charge her. This wasn't right at all, coming back must be shocking and all but to draw his weapon on her, and stare at her with such unbridled hate? Something was definitely not right here, and she had a sickening feeling it might be her.

Soon the other two boys of Winchester's team were standing behind him, their faces were a menagerie of emotions, all contorted into strange mixes of fear, shock, anger, and hate. Not a single one of them was happy to see her again. Well that hurt. No, it more than hurt, they had no idea what she's been through this past, however long it had been, she'd been tortured _endlessly_ , it felt like years, every year they'd set fire to her very soul and push deeper, spreading their evil in her body, in her _mind!_ How _dare_ they look at her like that! They knew nothing about true pain, about the suffering she'd been forced to endure for so long, with nothing but that wretched taunting voice for company! She clenched her fists unconsciously as the anger inside boiled over, her eyes narrowed as her pupils dilated in rage, her whole body stiffened and she breathed heavily, each one almost coming out as a growl. That only seemed to make the boys angrier, the more hostile she appeared the more hate welled in their eyes at the sight of her, which only fed her own, creating an endless cycle. It was remarkable that neither side had charged before Doctor Oobleck crested the top landing and appeared behind Winchester's team. He stood in apparent shock, for once at a loss for words before breaking the ominous silence with a single stunned sentence:

"Oh my, this _is_ interesting."

With that he extended his thermos into what resembled a flamethrower staff, a fire flickering at the end. And just like that all her anger dissipated, she respected this Oobleck immensely, she knew that, she also knew that there was no way he could've forgotten her...was there?

"Capture it, do _not_ kill it." Is all Oobleck said before he sent a fireball screaming towards her face.

Pyrrha's eyes dilated in fear, but her body reacted before she knew it, twisting to the side behind the cover of the doorway as the fireball blew apart the wall opposite her, showering her with splinters and shrapnel which somehow, despite all logic, left her unharmed. No time for the why's now though she thought, she could already hear the crashing of feet against the floor as they raced towards her room, luckily however, the fireball had opened a new escape route, one right onto the roof of a warehouse next to them. With all the strength she, and her adrenaline, could muster she raced towards the hole in the wall, leaping across to the warehouse roof.

"Is it running?! Why's it doing that?!" Winchester shouted, presumably at Oobleck, from behind her.

 _It_ , she thought as her feet carried her ever closer towards the edge of the rooftop, why do they keep calling me that? She was pretty clearly Pyrrha Nikos, she could see that, why couldn't they?

FWOOM, another fireball rocketed towards her back, she tucked and rolled, hoping for it to whizz over her, but instead it grazed her feet as she rolled, causing a fresh wave of pain to roll through her right ankle, with a sharp gasp of pain she exploded out of the roll and got back to her feet, desperately glancing behind her. Winchester and his team were farther behind than she expected, they should be faster than that. Oobleck however was right on her tail, she got the briefest glimpse of his eyes as she looked and found them full of a curiosity so intense that it almost scared her, that and the anger.

She couldn't take them, not all at once and injured like this, and especially not with Oobleck backing them up and her with no weapons, aura, or semblance. She needed them to stop, desperately so. She was nearing the edge of the warehouse roof now, before her spread a labyrinth of cargo containers filled with goods that never reached their destination; the closest one was just high enough for her to land without injury, most likely. The alternative however were the five huntsmen on her tail, that racked up the likelihood of getting injured to a definitely. Cargo containers sounds good.

With a deep breath she leapt off the roof of the warehouse, her momentum from her sprint carrying her extra far, farther than it should in fact, she realized as she passed the container she was aiming for and careened towards one too high for her to land on top of, but high enough for her to maybe grip. Bracing her body for the impact she collided with the container with an echoing thud as it knocked the wind from her lungs. For a second she thought her hands might've missed the edge and she panicked, but then her fingers found purchase and she managed to pull herself up just before another fireball roasted the spot where'd she'd been. She turned to face the source and found Doctor Oobleck on the container she had intended to land on, thirty or so feet behind her, the two containers they were on separated by twenty feet of air. Behind him she could make out Winchester and his group just leaping off the warehouse roof now.

She called out desperately to Oobleck, frantically shaking her head and begging him to stop this. She didn't know what he, or the gathering Winchester and his team heard, but it clearly wasn't her voice or her words. Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of verbal understanding their faces were a study in shock as she continued to shake her head and hold out her arms in front of her in a universal 'stop' gesture. She didn't want to fight them, as much as her emotions towards Winchester were of the anger and annoyance variety. She may not like the boy, but she definitely would not attack him unless she had to. Oobleck was especially painful, she knew she respected that man immensely; what memories caused that exactly she didn't know, but she did know that him attacking her on sight caused her a tremendous amount of emotional, and in the case of the fireball colliding with her ankle, physical pain.

Winchester recovered the quickest from his shock, and with a roar leapt towards her, despite his weight, the weight of his armor, and the weight of his mace he just managed to clear the jump, bringing his mace down in powerful overhead strike supplemented by gravity. Without her shield her first instinct was to roll left or right, however the narrow confines of the container forced her to leap backwards as the mace caved in the space where she'd been before. Winchester and his mace were big, they would hit hard, but that also meant they were slow, as long as she kept dodging she would be fine, and if she managed to get inside the reach of his mace there's not much he could do. Unfortunately, she was running out of room to dodge. She ducked gracefully as the mace careened horizontally above her head, coming down to one knee, her right leg stretched fully to the side before she pressed off and swiped it in an arc before her, separating the boy's feet from the ground in a rather forceful way. It wasn't until she finished the move though and attempted to stand over the boy that she inhaled sharply in pain and fell to the floor. _Stupid!_ Her right ankle was nowhere near fully healed and here she'd just used it to swipe the boy's feet out from a under him, a boy who just happened to be wearing steel greaves.

Seeing her vulnerability, his teammate with the short Mohawk and dual daggers leapt across the gap between the containers, followed in short order by the two other boys and Oobleck. Gritting her teeth in pain, she rolled on her back, avoiding the twin daggers that came down in a vicious arc on where she'd been, unfortunately that roll led her straight off the edge of the cargo container and sent her flying towards one ten feet below. She braced her forearms together in front of her, colliding with the surface of the next container to the tune of resonating metal and a gasp as she got the wind knocked from her lungs for the second time in a minute. Her momentum kept her rolling to the side as she fell off another container, repeating the same process for two more before she landed with tremendous pain on the solid concrete of the dockyard area.

After a second of dazed gasping she managed to catch her breath and with tremendous protests from her arms, which she was shocked weren't broken, managed to push herself to her feet as a moan of pain escaped her lips. She managed to look up to where she'd fallen from just in time to see the five huntsmen leaping down from container to container towards her. It suddenly hit her just what an unfair advantage Aura was. Her head swiveled from side to side, searching for any route of escape she could find. On her left and before her was nothing but empty docking yards for what must've been several hundred meters, with her renewed limp she'd get run down in that territory, and even without there was precious little cover from their ranged attacks that way. That left only her right, a winding maze of corridors formed by stacks of cargo containers, some fallen and others cracked open. Her right it was. She limped as fast as she could towards the maze and just as she passed into its protection another fireball collided with the ground directly behind her.

This wasn't automatic safety however, it provided the means to safety, but she needed to find that sanctuary on her own. She hobbled down the maze, taking lefts and rights or continuing on straight haphazardly, all the while breathing heavily and glancing over her shoulder to see if she'd lost them. She heard them shouting, communicating to each other over the tops of the containers. They were like hunting hounds on a scent, braying to each other as they split up to confuse and corner their prey.

Dust, why wouldn't they stop?! Couldn't they see who she was? _Maybe they can,_ a voice whispered in the back of her mind, _maybe you're the one who can't see things for what they are._ Icy fear gripped her heart. No, that-that couldn't be true. She stared at her hands for confirmation, willing them to be her hands, she looked at her legs, her feet, they all looked like her, but what if the voice was right? What if she couldn't see? Everything else, the Grimm, Winchester and his team, Doctor Oobleck, all saw something else when they looked at her. _But what?! What do they see?!_ She stared at her trembling hands in panic, they couldn't even understand her when she talked to them.

"Hello there." She started at the proximity of the voice, head shooting upwards and body leaping backwards, careful of her right foot this time. How could she have been so stupid twice in one day?! Being lost in her own mind and allowing people to sneak up on her was not something Pyrrha Nikos the Champion should've allowed to happen. The voice came from the end of the "hallway" the containers formed, there it formed a "T", the Doctor before her must've come from one of the twin branches, while she was lost in her own little world. She glanced quickly behind her and found the hall continued on for at least another fifteen feet before another corridor offered sanctuary on the left. Would she be fast enough to dodge any fireballs he shot at her? Even if she was could she outrun him with her limp?

"Can you understand me?" That question jarred her mind out of the, admittedly pessimistic, calculations about her escape chances. She looked at the man with the unkempt shock of green hair before her, she couldn't see his eyes behind his glasses, he held his hunting hat in his right hand, his flamethrower staff in a relaxed position towards the ground in his left. She nodded vehemently in answer to his question. This was leagues better than him chasing her, or blowing her apart with his fireballs, but it still wasn't good enough. Somehow none of them could understand her or see her for who she… She glanced down at her hands. What she thought she was.

"Fascinating," Oobleck muttered under his breath. Her head snapped back up at that. His eyebrows shot up in return, apparently he hadn't expected her to hear that. He coughed somewhat awkwardly before he continued.

"Can you speak?" Without thinking she immediately responded with an excited yes as she nodded her head in unison. This...confounded the Doctor. He clearly understood her nodding, that much had to be true, how could he not? But his brows furrowed in surprised concentration at whatever she had said. Either she hadn't said yes, or he had heard something else.

He took a hesitant two steps towards her, "Well, I'm afraid you can't speak, or...at least I can't understand you." She sighed in frustration at that, another thing that seemed to surprise the Doctor.

"Doctor! We're on our way!" Winchester's voice was close, too close. And even worse it sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind her. Her body tensed up and she checked quickly over her shoulder. The pounding of four feet seemed to be coming from somewhere further down the hallway, not from the nearest exit on her left. She turned back to face Oobleck, desperately trying to think of a way out.

"I'm afraid you won't make it there in time," he said with a weary sigh as he replaced his hat. "You're already wounded."

He was right of course, she'd allowed herself to be trapped due to stupidity. But, that didn't mean she wouldn't try. That she wouldn't give up without a fight. She leapt backwards, away from Oobleck again, turning to the right to dodge the fireball that sailed past her, she backed up more. She didn't want to turn her back on Oobleck, but if she didn't then Winchester and his team would be on her, she either had to turn and dash for the hallway or continue to do this dodging dance until Winchester and his team cornered her. With her mind screaming that she was making a fatal mistake she turned her back on Oobleck, but instead of hearing the familiar screeching that indicated a fireball had launched she heard the impossible speed of his footsteps closing in on her, she poured everything she could into her feet, but her damn ankle couldn't carry any weight. She desperately attempted to dive away from the strike she knew was coming, but it was lower than she expected, catching her ribs mid dive, and effortlessly sending her crashing into the container on the left, denting it as she did. Her body fell to concrete with a crack, yet nothing was broken. Dust, everything hurt, she desperately clawed at the ground in front of her, trying to crawl away, but she could already hear the final blow on its way, she looked towards her right, and immediately the thermos slammed into her face, shockingly she wasn't knocked out by the blow. By all logic she should be, but it merely stunned her.

The immense force of the blow, however, caused her head to snap back, the back of it colliding with the container behind her. She could feel something hot and wet dribbling down her neck. Darkness began to cloud her vision, contesting with the stars that danced before her, and a terrifying thought crept into her mind as she threatened to blackout. What if the Darkness claimed her again? What if she had to endure more torture? She didn't want that, couldn't take it, she would never go back there, not willingly, not without a _fight._

Her hands scrabbled desperately against the concrete, she could hear another crushing blow from the thermos on its way. She brought her forearms before her in an X, catching the flaming weapon squarely across her arms, but the momentum continued. Her back slammed against the thin steel of the metal container, and, surprisingly, her back won. With a deafening screech the metal was rent apart as she went careening through the gap. Another screech and once more her back punctured through metal, sending her through the wall of a warehouse and sprawling across the floor.

Her vision swam, the lights suspended on the ceiling shifting and circling with their twins as her blinks struggled to sort out her vision. The steady clacking of feet on metal forced her body into action. Her vision still swam, her ankle still screamed, and her arms were sore from protest, but she groggily rose to meet her attacker. Three Ooblecks swam in and out of focus before her, approaching with weary sighs as they hefted the weaponized thermos. Three flaming staffs solidified into one just moments before they collided with her left side. Instinctively her arm swept downward, locking down the device against her side as her right fist went careening towards one of the three Oobleck's cheek for a counterattack. She wasn't sure if he dodged or she missed, but either way the only thing her fist connected with was air. Oobleck followed up by ramming his shoulder into her chest, bodily checking her into a wall of shelves lined with boxes. The rack shook as her body collided with it, boxes full of unused goods cracking underneath her. A small part of her brain told her that shouldn't happen, that she didn't weigh that much. That part went ignored as she brought her forehead down in a vicious headbutt towards the good doctor. He brought his hat down just in time to absorb the worst of the blow, but he still stumbled backwards and away from her. Suddenly though, without the weight of the Doctor keeping her up, her body began to teeter ominously; her mind was sluggish and slow, and she couldn't raise her arms in front of her face as it rushed to meet the ground. With a resounding crack the two met, but the pain was unusually dulled, impossibly so. Her fingers scratched feebly against the concrete, leaving shallow scratches on the usually unyielding surface. _Huh_ , was her last thought.

In her dream she was chasing someone, the blond boy. His shoulders were hunched as he walked away from her, down a path covered in snow and dead trees. She poured everything she could into the movement of her legs, she wanted to shout his name to get him to stop, she opened her mouth, but no words came. She couldn't remember who he was, only that he was incredibly important to her. _Catch him, I have to catch him_. She took off towards him, but a familiar sharp pain in her heel caused her to trip and fall, she looked down in shock and terror to see an arrow sticking out from her foot. She couldn't tell where it had come from, it seemed to appear out of the darkness.

Emerald eyes wide with fear scanned the black behind her, but it was fruitless. The black was impenetrable and unknowable. Slowly it began to stretch towards her, she desperately tried to crawl away back towards the blond boy and the snow, but it only seemed to adjust its speed to be slightly faster than her own. It was toying with her, she realized. It could catch her whenever it wanted, but it wanted to cause her fear, force her to see the inevitability of her plight before it crushed her. A chilling laugh echoed from the dark behind her, growing in volume until it seemed to be coming from all around her. It was the same laugh that had mocked her so during her torture. She wanted to get up and fight it, to scream and shout and rage at it, she wanted to kill it, but the pain in her ankle and the all consuming fear that gripped her heart forced her body to stay petrified where she lay.

"The others know what you are, child, yet you still cling to your soul's desperate illusion. A fool's errand. It would've have been kinder had he not freed you, but this way has proven much more _entertaining_." Another hollow, scraping laugh. She flinched as the laugh overwhelmed her ears, seemed to pierce into her brain. She opened her mouth to beg for help, but the laugh was in her head now, splitting it like a spike, every breath seeming to only drive it deeper. Involuntarily she screamed, a desperate, terrible, and animalistic display of jeopardy. The laugh overwhelmed her, and she couldn't hear herself screaming anymore, though her mouth still hung open and her vocal chords still trembled, all she could hear was the laugh.

Her body woke before her mind did, eyes wide and limbs writhing and scratching before her brain was willing or able to process what it saw. She was faintly aware of her mouth still open, still emitting that horrible scream, but for a second she was incapable of quieting it. In separate effort it clamped her hands over her mouth, the scream continued, but it was muffled now. As her mind became aware of her surroundings she began to choke on her scream, stopping it dead as she gasped for breath.

She was in a cell, a literal actual jail cell. There were no bars before her though, only a massive steel door with slots for food. On her right was what appeared to be a window of some kind _,_ and through it she could see four figures. The first her mind told her was Doctor Oobleck, minus his glasses and hat, but still with his thermos. His eyes were wide, but whether in astonishment or fear she couldn't tell. A faint bruise colored his forehead. _I did that to him_ , she realized, and before she could stop it a desperate "I'm sorry" escaped her mouth. His eyes flinched at that, his concentrated frown growing deeper. Of course, he couldn't understand her, none of them could.

The big portly man dressed in a crimson coat to Ooblecks left, her right, leaned over and whispered something in the Doctor's ear. It was then that she remembered the three other figures that stood with Oobleck. She recognized them all, but only two had names. On Oobleck's left was the portly man with an incredibly bushy gray mustache masking his mouth, and equally bushy eyebrows hiding his eyes. She respected this man, not as much as Oobleck, but there was still a hearty amount there, and along with it came an incredible sense of boredom. Then there was the woman on Oobleck's right, she was tall, with somewhat disheveled golden curls framing both sides of her face, the rest of her hair was pulled back in a hasty but organized bun nestled atop the back of her head. Her face was beautiful, but stern and unyielding, with piercing, analytical, green eyes that scanned her, finding all her weaknesses and the quickest way to exploit them. Her arms were crossed in front of her and in her right hand she held a black riding crop. With her face came emotions, as with all the others. She had respect for this woman, more than she did for Oobleck, but with it came a healthy amount of fear as well, that, combined with her dismantling green eyes, caused her to inadvertently flinch backwards, half raising one arm defensively in front of her. This roused a snort from the back of the group opposite the glass in front of her, away from all the people she respected and on Oobleck's far right was Winchester. His back was resting solidly against the wall behind, arms crossed in front of him, his face locked in a sneer and his eyes flaring with hate.

She snorted in anger at the sight of him and his idiotic eyes. Leaning heavily against the wall for support she managed to force herself to her feet, or foot as it were, seeing how much she was favoring her left side. She wouldn't appear weak in front of that fool, despite her ankle's protests that weak didn't matter as long as it healed. Purple eyes glared back at hers and, while her left arm was busy supporting her weight on the wall, her right tensed at her side.

The sound of someone clearing their throat tore her eyes away from Winchester and towards the source. Oobleck had one hand raised to his chin, the other resting on his flamethrower staff at his side, using it as a cane. He seemed intensely interested in her, his eyes memorizing every detail of her face and body.

"Do you know where you are?" He asked in a consciously slow manner. Well, yes she knew vaguely where she was, in Vale, somewhere near the West Commercial and Industrial Districts if what she had seen of bullhead activity held true. But that really was quite a large area wasn't it? And she didn't know where she was immediately either except that it was somewhere in a cell, in some building. Frustratedly she nodded, followed by a quick shake of her head: yes and no.

"Yes and no?" The answer seemed to intrigue Oobleck, intensifying the curiosity with which he looked at her. This...wasn't going to work. She needed some way to communicate in depth with the man and the rest of the group before her. She looked over them and only then noticed the electronic devices clipped to their waists. Scrolls! She could still type couldn't she? Hobbling forward towards the glass she pointed towards the dormant device attached to the man's belt, before carefully pointing at herself and making typing gestures and pointing back at him.

Oobleck, and indeed everyone else on the other side of the glass was in a state of shock. Even Winchester's sneer had faded to a quizzical look.

"You want me to give you my scroll?" He asked hesitantly, she frantically nodded her head in return. "Why?" Damn. She needed a better way of explaining, her typing gestures must've just looked like nonsense. Quickly she pointed towards her mouth and opened and closed it in various shapes, and pointed back towards Oobleck.

"To eat him?" The portly man beside Oobleck almost chuckled. No! Not to eat him! Why would she want to eat him?! She frantically shook her head, this time hobbling closer to the glass so she was leaning against it before pointing towards her mouth and making the same miming talking motions, before pointing to her her ear and then at Oobleck.

"You want my scroll to talk to me?" The green haired man's face was alight with excitement and curiosity. The relief that she was understood and the Doctor's infectious excitement caused her to break out into a wide smile and nod her head vigorously. With barely contained excitement Oobleck looked at the blond woman for permission, before she hesitantly nodded her head.

"Brilliant! I shall give it to you through the slot in the door!" He shouted, his words a jumbled mess now that his conscious effort to slow them down was replaced with unbridled excitement. He vanished from the room in a streak of green as she hobbled back over towards the giant steel door. Just as she got there, the bottom most slot flipped open and an open scroll slid across the ground and against her foot. Leaning on the door for support she picked up the device with a triumphant smile on her face. Progress at last! The Scroll was open to the notes section with a blinking cursor displayed and a keyboard at the bottom of the screen.

"Very well then, if you would type out your answers to my questions and and hold them up to the glass when you are finished that would be capital!" Oobleck was already back in the room with the others, barely able to contain his jitteriness. As she made her way back over to the glass she couldn't help but grin, something that seemed to unnerve the rest of the group, making the blond woman's eyebrows furrow together and the round man in the crimson jacket's mustache rustle and frown. However the best part was Winchester, who had stopped leaning against the wall and tapped his foot nervously against the ground. That fact only made her smile wider.

"Excellent, now I suppose we should start from the beginning again: do you know where you are?" Oobleck asked. Her fingers moved quickly across the keyboard, face a mute frown of concentration. It was good things like typing weren't included in her amnesia. Eventually, after reading over her response she thought she had come up with something satisfactory: _Yes and no, I know I am in Vale, somewhere in the Western Commercial and Industrial District as we should be near your base. Though where exactly this cell and building I'm located in are I do not know._

She pressed the screen of the scroll flat against the glass, exactly at eye level for Oobleck, and while it was intended for the green haired Doctor, she couldn't help but notice the way everyone in the room leaned in to read her screen.

"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating." Oobleck muttered to himself in quiet astonishment, the portly man beside him could only grunt in response.

"Who knew it would be smart enough to talk." Winchester grunted as he read the screen pressed against the glass. She fixed him with her coldest stare. What did he mean by that? Of course she could talk, she knew it must be strange to see her back from the dead, it felt strange. But that didn't mean she couldn't-well apparently she could only type coherently not speak, but still. Her eyes snapped away from Winchester and to the blond woman beside Oobleck as she heard her speak for the first time.

"Yes well-" she was interrupted abruptly by Doctor Oobleck, the man seemed to have tuned out all of existence save for himself, his scroll, and the subject before him.

"How long have you been able to understand us?" He asked excitedly. The question gave her pause, she couldn't give a specific date because her memories were so jumbled and fuzzy, but nothing in her mind told her that there was ever a point where she _couldn't_ understand people, save for the voice in the darkness. She wasn't sure to count that among people however. And she definitely couldn't remember a time after the darkness where she hadn't been able to understand them. This answer took her longer, but she could tell the group before her would wait as long as it took, they were enthralled by this. _As far back as I can remember, I have always been able to understand people._ She pressed the Scroll against the glass and awaited their response.

It was not what she expected.

Oobleck's complexion paled but his excitement did not waver, the man in crimson stiffened and his mustache twitched in agitation, the woman straightened her riding crop and her face was broken by a furious frown. Winchester stormed forward, his nostrils flaring and his eyes burning.

"Can the rest of you understand us?!" He shouted at her, arms trembling with fury at his side. Rest of you? What did he mean? She glanced at her hands, but they still showed her pale skin and human hands. _You know what he means,_ a voice whispered in her head. No, no, _no._ She refused. They _had_ to be wrong. She _had_ to human. Please-

"When you slaughter us, when you hear them sob and beg can the rest of you understand?!" Winchester had slammed one palm against the glass now, but she hadn't noticed the noise over the volume of his shout. She could only stare at him and his words in mind numbing fear of what they implied.

"When you _slaughtered_ the family of whoever that child's doll belonged to, could you understand them?! How old were they?!" There were tears in his eyes now, a strange sight, the eyes that looked at her with such absolute _hate_ , were brimming with unshed tears. His hand on the glass had gone white and rigid with rage, the one by his side was the opposite, trembling and raging and wishing for nothing more than to choke the life out of her. She glanced at the doll tucked in her sash, still covered in blood, and trembling along with her whole body. She had to tell them. Had to tell them that it wasn't her, it _couldn't_ have been her, it was the _Grimm_ and she was human, she had to be. Oh Dust she had to be. With a manic desperation she shook her head as she typed, she couldn't look into those scalding eyes. _It wasn't me, I didn't kill the girl, it was the Grimm._

She slammed the Scroll against the glass, desperately willing for them to believe her, they _had_ to. Her hand was shaking in panic, her eyes shot from face to face in the group as they read her message. The three she respected knitted their brows in confusion, and stared at her reprehensibly, trying to make sense of her words, but they only filled Winchester with even more fury.

"Are you _mocking me?!_ You _know_ what you are!" He spat the words at her as if there was no greater insult. She knew what she was didn't she? She had to. She knew _who_ she was. She was Pyrrha Nikos, wasn't she? She stared at her hands, they seemed worn now, extra calloused and scarred but they were _still_ her hands, _human_ hands. What was happening?! Was something wrong with her or them? Her whole body shook as she typed the words on the scroll, shaking her head and murmuring incoherently. _I'm human, like you. I'm Pyrrha Nikos._

She pressed the screen against the glass, desperately scanning their faces as they read, shook their heads in shock, and read again. The silence seemed to stretch on forever, broken only by her murmurings of what she hoped sounded like "please" again and again. Their eyes kept going from the screen to her face, faint sparks of recognition registering ever so slightly. But instead of relieved grins and smiles their frowns only deepened, their faces growing ever more world weary. Oobleck spoke first.

"Miss...Nikos," he struggled with that, but he had said her name, called her by her name! The tiniest spark of hope registered within her heart. The faint sound of a camera shutter coming from her right tore her, and everyone else's attention towards Winchester. He held his scroll in hand before his face and as she stared at it she heard the camera go off again. He lowered it and glared at her with eyes still full of hate.

"You may _think_ you're Pyrrha Nikos, you may even look like her." No, no, _please_. "But you are _not_ her and you are _not_ human." She let out a small whimper and held her hand out as if begging him to stop, to not deliver the news she knew now was inevitable.

"You are a _Grimm."_

He stared at her with utter disgust as he slammed his scroll against the glass, the picture he just took staring back at her. The woman, if it could be called that, staring back at her had a spiked ivory headdress, no chains dangling gently, just plasters of spikes and bone thrust towards the sky, with a flowing red trim. Her hair was deathly white instead of red, not a beautiful platinum like the girl in her memories, but a sick, dead white. Dry and brittle, it hung. Her ponytail was one long braided length, but the color and texture of the hair, along with how it was braided, suggested that rather than hair it was a link of small human femurs, dangling down to the small of her back. Where her headdress met her forehead a sharp vertical edge began to form as boney plates met with the crown, the same edge continued down just past where she felt her nose ended, and there it stopped in a sharp point. The same boney plates formed around her eyes, following her cheekbones diagonally downward, meeting the vertical blade just before it ended in its point. Where the plates around her eyes met the blade they swooped outwards, reinforcing the sharp edge. The same plates, as they passed the outside corners of her eyes, went up, meeting the headdress that had become fused with her body and made of her own bone. The sides of her mask that swooped up towards it were coated in small spikes, increasing in size until they met her headdress, where they reached the maximum length of about an inch and a half. The skin that could be seen, that of her her cheeks and around her mouth was deathly pale, if it was anymore more white it would be transparent. Black veins pulsed beneath her skin and could be seen just underneath the surface; outwards from her mouth wisps of black coloration crept in every direction across her skin, some vanishing up behind her mask, others stretching out to the very edge of her cheeks, grasping for something they couldn't find. Her lips themselves were pitch black, like the wisps they emitted across her face. Her neck guard was still where it was, but like her headdress it had been fused to skin and made of the same boney plate. Articulated spikes erupted from it and stretched upwards towards her jaw, bending and moving with with her skin like joints. Where they met her jaw they formed a line following it, tracing it along her face but not past the lower jaw. From there more small spikes of bone crept up her pallid skin, but no more than two inches. All of her boney plates, from headdress, to mask, to neck guard were covered in the intricate blood-red trim of Grimm. Her eyes though, her eyes were what really shocked her. Where before there had been the white, followed by the brilliant green iris, to the black pupil, there now was nothing but blood red, all the way up to her pupil, the one bastion of humanity left in her face. Her pupil was where a dot of pure green resided, nestled in the burning red, like a forest surrounded on all sides by a wildfire.

She screamed and sobbed all at once, a terrible, guttural, fearful thing forcing its way from her throat. Somehow she had ended up on the floor, knees pressed against her chin as she stared at her trembling hands. The skin on her palms was the same pitch black as her lips, punctuated by small flecks of white scattered like paint. But the back of her hands and all of her forearms were covered in more thickened bone plate, forming a gauntlet upon her hand with vicious red colored spikes protruding from her knuckles, and sharpened red points perched on the edges of her fingers. The redness of the spikes stretched up her forearms, past the flared curve of her gauntlets, and in four red lines met four equal length and equally vicious spines protruding from the back of her elbows.

Her hands shook as she screamed. She wasn't sure how the group on the other side was reacting, but did it really matter? Here she was, after all that torture, and she couldn't even call herself human anymore. And with the limited memories barely making a comeback in her mind, could she even call herself Pyrrha? Did it matter _who_ she was, when inherently _what_ she was now was monstrous? She didn't know.

* * *

 **A/N: Confirmation! Pyrrha is Grimm-ish. "Ish" being the key phrase there. She's not human, but nor is she fully Grimm as she does have a, admittedly pathetically small, aura.**

 **Now people may be wondering how she never saw the change in her body before, and the answer to that, as some probably saw coming, is Aura. Pyrrha doesn't have enough Aura to form a basic shield around her body from blows, only to passively heal over time. Pyrrha is also the type of person, I believe, to lie to someone if it prevents them from being hurt in some way, even if it might be better for them to know the truth. Bearing that in mind what her aura did was essentially trick her eyes into seeing what they wanted to see, a pleasant lie that served to "protect" her somewhat from her fate since it couldn't protect her physically from harm.**

 **Of course, whether it was kinder to reveal it to her from the start or reveal it here is debatable, yet also a moot point. Now that her soul's illusion has been shattered she can never fall back into it again, she's stuck with reality now, for better or worse.**

 **Sorry I put this one up so late, had a busy day and didn't get around to editing until late, debated posting it tomorrow, but I promised a weekly schedule so I'll stick to it, even if it's posted at a wonky time.**

 **That's all for today, do tell me what you think of this chapter, I'll probably update the summary sometime tomorrow to be more spoilery, but now I'm gonna go to bed. Goodnight, friends! By the way sorry if this is more error-filled than normal, my mind is pretty hazy from sleepiness at the moment.**


	6. The Blond Boy

"-ink Bart?" Bartholomew Oobleck was shaken from his thoughts by the deep bellowing voice across from him. Peter had asked him something, though exactly what he was unsure.

"I'm sorry Peter," he sighed hastily, "I'm afraid I was lost in my thoughts."

"Ha!" The moustachioed man before him bellowed, his laugh and amused pounding of the table shook the group's bodies, but after so many years together they were used to it. "Don't tell me you've turned back into a student Barty, why I remember when I spoke so many minds used to wander-"

"Yes, Peter I'm afraid we are all familiar with your lectures and their tendency to...drone on." Glynda sighed from Bart's left, raising a finger to press her glasses back up the bridge of her nose as she made eyebrow contact with the man across from him.

"Glynda, you wound me." The man clutched at his chest melodramatically as his moustache shifted in what his colleagues knew to be a smile. His face took on a more serious tone as his eyebrows stared at each grain of wood on the table. "Let's hope the students remember them too."

The table grew silent as each of the teachers slipped into that familiar territory of doubt, each one wondering if they'd truly done enough to prepare the children in their charge. Bart could tell by the slumping of his age old friends' shoulders that they didn't think they had. He could sympathize. The creature in the cell claiming to be Miss Nikos only seemed to further drive that point home to them. Bart sighed for what must've been the tenth time in the past hour. So many questions, so many possibilities related to it. All of them seemed infinitely tragic.

"As I was saying though, what do you think, Barty?" What did he think? That was a very good question.

"Well...I think the creature in there is the first humanoid Grimm we've ever encountered, nay even heard of. The implications of it are staggering to say the least."

"Not to mention it can talk." Winchester spoke up for the first time from the his spot near the door. As the team leader when they had encountered the creature Bart felt his presence here might be needed, so far it hadn't.

"Typing is not talking, Mr. Winchester." The Doctor corrected, turning towards his empty mug that sat before him. "The creature did seem to instinctively try to speak to me several times when it had certain gut reactions, and before that on the cargo containers. Both times however it made only beastial, strangled noises; different from the typical guttural roars and growls of the Grimm we know, but unintelligible all the same. Nothing like proper words. Such an action suggests that it thinks, or thought, it could talk, but cannot." He attempted to straighten his tie as he leaned back in his chair, before giving up and resting a hand contemplatively under his chin.

"But it's, admittedly, deft mastery of our language suggests it knows it rather well. And it's sufficient mastery of the mechanics of the written word suggest an uncomfortable amount of familiarity with our language. Where would it get the chance to read and write?" The whole scenario unnerved and excited the man. As a hunter it was his duty to protect humanity from the forces of the Grimm, and a reading and writing Grimm like the one in the cell suggested an immense increase in threat. The doctor and student in him was dying to know more about the creature, the things they could learn about the Grimm from it were innumerable, interrogation had never before been a possibility with Grimm. That is, if it's claim was false. "What do you think Mr. Winchester?"

The boy huffed in annoyance, though he knew it was in vain. Despite the fact that Beacon had fallen and taken most of Vale with it, the teachers before him still informally quizzed and educated him and his team, as well as those of the others who had remained in Vale. Old habits really did die hard. "Well," he began, mustering his thoughts, "who knows how long the creature could've been in Vale? Surely there are lots of books and papers lying around? It could've read those?" The ex-professors all stared at him, clearly what he had said wasn't satisfactory. Coughing nervously, he thought deeper, having three teachers get their educating kicks from him at once was not enjoyable. "But that wouldn't be enough time to learn a language so intimately, I guess. Could be it had been studying it since Mountain Glenn? Hiding in the caves and tunnels there, picking through the ruins?" Apparently this was satisfactory enough as Oobleck nodded and spoke.

"If we consider it to be nothing more than a Grimm than that may very well be. The written word can be a vessel for human emotion, perhaps over the years some Grimm managed to learn the language, but for such a creature to have the necessary intellect to even begin such a task it would have to be centuries old, not to mention history has proven again and again that translations are impossible without some form of codex or base, and the Grimm language, if such a thing even exists, would bear no similarities at all to ours. It would've needed help. Something virtually impossible."

Peter leaned forward in his chair, making it creak as he did so. He eyed Bart knowingly. " _If_ we consider it a Grimm? I think I know where you're going with this Barty."

Bartholomew Oobleck could only shrug and smirk in return, the man truly knew him too well. " _But_ if we consider the creature's claim that it is, somehow, Miss Nikos. Well, many things start to make sense."

"You can't be serious," Cardin shouted, his face locked in indignation and outrage. "That _thing_ , is a Grimm, how could it possibly be Nikos?!"

Bart glanced again wistfully at the empty mug before him. The true tragedy of the Fall of Beacon had been the interruption of his steady coffee supply. "How indeed," he muttered before looking up to face Cardin. "When we first encountered the creature, Mr. Winchester, what was it doing?"

The boy blinked, thinking back to the encounter on the ninth floor that had led them here. "Nothing, it just stood there. Though," he scratched at some of his stubble in thought, "it didn't exactly seem pleased to see me. Pretty pissed in fact."

"But it didn't attack immediately?" Peter's eyebrows were furrowed together at Cardin's description of the first few seconds. Despite his rambling nature and tendency to boast, Peter had held the position of Grimm Studies Teacher for a reason. The man knew the creatures and their tendencies extremely well.

"No, it just stood there, staring at me and my team. I guess that's weird, isn't it?"

"Extremely so," Peter grunted across from him.

"And when _we_ attacked _it_ , Mr. Winchester, what did it do?" Bart asked the boy, using that same tone that said you already knew the answer, but that he wanted you to realize it.

"It ran." He stated, as if that should've been obvious. "Scurried out the first hole it could, the one you made in the wall."

Bart nodded vehemently in agreement, rising quickly from his chair. "It _ran_ ," he said. "Grimm do not run. They never have. They engage any human on sight, right away, the only way they win is if that human ends up dead. They do not retreat, they have almost no sense of self preservation and not a shred of mercy or morality." He was on a roll now, his words inadvertently becoming jumbled together in his excitement. "Their sole purpose is the utter extinction of humanity with unheard of tenacity. As far as we know, it is their only purpose. Their single minded tenacity in pursuit of that goal is the only defining characteristic of Grimm. They pursue it until they are dead. But this creature, when we engaged it, it _ran_." A breath, breath was important, he needed to breath to speak, and he needed to speak to convince them. "Not only did it run from us, it never _once_ took the offensive either, it exclusively attacked in self-defense, only countering Mr. Winchester's strike when it had to."

Peter's eyebrows were so tightly knit in concentration that they seemed to practically be one. "That is...extraordinary unusual. In fact," he sighed, rubbing his left hand down his face before shaking his head in academic defeat, "I can't say I've ever heard of such behavior from a Grimm before. In any book or tale I can recall."

"Exactly!" Bart shouted, "now one could attempt to rationalize it away by saying that it was injured, which it was, especially after swiping Mr. Winchester. But in all our years have any of you heard of injury stopping a Grimm from engaging?" Cardin shook his head in minor defeat, Peter as well but in minor curiosity, as did Glynda, after she was satisfied that she had perused every memory in that organized, file cabinet of a brain she had. "And when it leaped a container ahead of us it turned, shook its head, and held out its arms as if desperately asking us to _stop_. Perhaps most damning of all during Mr. Winchester's and my encounter with the creature were the last few seconds of it. When I rounded the corner and laid eyes on it it had no idea I was there. It was completely unaware I existed, it was too busy absorbed in its trembling hands. I can't say for certain what it saw, but if its reaction to its own photo was so dramatic I don't think it saw the truth. It was only when I spoke that it realized I was there, and instead of attacking or running immediately, once I had started communicating with it it made every effort to communicate back to me, to _talk_ with me."

"So you believe it really is Pyrrha Nikos then?" Glynda's question was neither hostile nor thankful, but rather utterly and completely neutral. Her face a mask of impassive indifference.

"That is the million lien question isn't it?" He shook his head, only just now realizing that in his excitement he had ended up on the opposite side of the room from his chair. Quickly he made his way back to it and sat down, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose as he began to speak again. "I cannot say for certain what the creature is; it doesn't behave at all like a Grimm, yet it resembles one in every way physically, save for its eyes. Burning red eyes with green pupils, definitely unheard of in Grimm. But it doesn't behave like one, it behaves like a human, and that...well I think that makes some of its case for being Miss Nikos."

"So," Peter sighed, "It's either a human that looks like a Grimm, or a Grimm that looks like a human. What to do with a thing like that, eh?" All eyes in the room turned to face Glynda, who was staring intently at the gray, concrete wall of the room, a frown of concentration adorning her face. Despite it all Bart could make out the tiniest glimmers of hope in the woman's green eyes.

"Even if it is just a Grimm-" Glynda began, before Bart could butt in.

"A Grimm that can read and write is hardly 'just a Grimm.'"

A glare from Glynda.

"Even if it is _a_ Grimm," she said, with a pointed look towards Oobleck, "it is still a valuable…asset. It hasn't shown any signs of deterioration yet, so perhaps it could make for a suitable source of information at the very least. If its claim proves true and it is Miss Nikos inside there then we have to help her. Though how I'm not sure."

The two other ex-professors nodded in agreement, it seemed they'd reached a verdict. Without realizing Bart glanced over at Cardin, half-expecting the boy to argue, no matter how suicidal a prospect arguing with Glynda would be. However, instead of a stubborn look and an open mouth prepping for a doomed argument, Bart saw the boy with his arms crossed, his eyes taking on a tone he knew only too well: pupils dilated in intense concentration, but distant and separated from his physical surroundings.

"Something on your mind, lad?" Peter asked the boy while giving him thunderous clap on the back, a good thing Cardin wore his cuirass to the meeting, Oobleck thought absentmindedly.

"Just...just wondering what could do that to a person is all, Professor." The boy replied with a small shrug, the distant look still in his eyes, though faded now.

Peter's eyebrows lost their good natured height and descended into seriousness for a quick second before they shot back up. But only half as high as before. "Shouldn't worry yourself with such things lad, I'm sure we can kill it either way. Why, when I was a boy of only twelve-" Peter descended into one of his familiar tales as he escorted the young hunter back to the courtyard, laughing jovially and making terrible jokes all the way. It was an act for the boy, that much was obvious to Glynda and Bart. Something to steer his mind away from darker thoughts. The question still remained on the three ex-professor's minds however: what could do that to a person?

None of them had an answer.

* * *

Pyrrha counted the cracks in the concrete ceiling. She supposed it was one big crack really, webbing itself across the gray surface. She sighed, moving her head to the wall that held the giant steel door in front of her. There were few cracks on that wall. That made sense, the wall with the door would probably be the weakest, have the most attention paid to its maintenance and repairs as the most likely escape route. The ceiling would be the least monitored, hardly an escape if the floor collapses on you. Unless you were looking for an escape from life. _That wouldn't be such a bad idea_ , a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered. She swatted it down immediately, desperately looking along the walls for other cracks to count until she made a looked in the glass and saw her reflection.

She flinched in pain and her head snapped to the other wall. One crack, two, three, _you're a monster, can't you see?_ FIVE-five cracks, six, eight, ten, _you'll kill all your friends._ She rounded on the glass with a snarl and stared at the reflection balefully, growling at it to _shut up_ , but instead of her voice only a strangled mix of a rasp and growl came out. The reflection smirked at her as she stood and limped towards the wall opposite the glass, sitting down with her back facing it. She resolved to instead count the bumps on the wall, occupy more of her mind, both sight and touch that way.

Eighty-seven, eighty-eight, ninety, ninety-o- _your friends think you're a monster, you know?_ She grit her teeth. Ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-thre- _And the Grimm see you as one of them._ A deep breath. She wouldn't let it win. She was Pyrrha Nikos. She _had_ to be. _But what if you're not?_ Ninety-four, ninety-fi- _what if you're just another Grimm? That's all they see you as now._ Her eyes were glimmering with rage now. Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, nine- _That's all_ he _will see you as now, he might even kill you._ Shut up. _And you won't even know his name._ Shut. Up. _The worst part won't be the death though, oh no, the worst part will be when you look into his eyes and see only disgust when he looks at you. The blond who's name I know_.

Her left fist shot forward and into the wall from where it was clutched at her side as she let out a shrieking rasp of rage and turned to face the monster in the glass. The monster _she'd_ become. She would've smashed it to pieces, would've lost herself in the glorious relief of shattering that glass and _shutting it up._ But when she turned her reflection was replaced with a man.

A very real man with green hair and glasses that stared back at her. _Doctor Oobleck_ , her mind told her. The rasp died a gurgling death in her throat and her rage dissipated, replaced only with shame. She met his eyes for a second, long enough for him to raise an eyebrow at her and for her to fully realize her embarrassment as her gaze flicked away to the left. A small glowing rectangle caught her eye and she recognized Oobleck's scroll lying on the ground by the door. As quick as she could she scooped up the scroll and typed out a message. _I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there._

Turning back towards the glass and the doctor she walked over somewhat dejectedly before pressing the screen against the glass. His head tilted to the side a little and the edges of his mouth curved slightly upwards in amusement. "Oh? Then who was causing you so much trouble? They must've been quite the pest if they caused you to, ah, _vent_ on the wall so dramatically."

She blinked in confusion at him, not quite catching his meaning. Yes, she had punched the wall in outrage, but it was a concrete wall and she didn't have her aura to back up the blow, only rage, and her extremely effective plates if the lack of pain in her arm was anything to go by. The man before her noticed her confusion and his amusement only seemed to grow, silently he indicated with his finger to turn and take another look. She did so, and let out a small gasp, her hands quickly covering her mouth in embarrassment as she examined the _dent_ she had left in the wall. It was about an inch or so deep at the center, covered in cracks that spider wedded out across the wall until they vanished into nothingness. She wasn't sure if she could blush anymore, but her body was certainly giving it her best go. She turned back to Oobleck as she typed up a storm. _I'm so sorry, I didn't know I could do that. I will be more careful._

The doctor chuckled slightly as he read the message, though whether it was the message or the absurdity of the situation of a monster like herself promising to be more careful like a child caught spilling a drink she didn't know. Probably both.

"I came to deliver you that scroll," he said, nodding towards the glowing device against the glass before pulling another one out of his pocket, "I couldn't let you take mine every time we chatted, after all."

 _Thank you, Doctor Oobleck._

He gave her a kind smile before turning towards the door and vanishing in a green streak, leaving her alone to stare at her wicked reflection where a moment ago a friend had stood.

The armor on her legs remained much the same as it had, save for the bronze coloration and elegant, smooth edges and curves. The coloration and material had been replaced by the white bony plate with red trim. All the elegant curves had been replaced by sharp angles that seemed to almost be intended as blades. The most major difference was that where the bronze greaves had once met black heeled boots, white plate met more sharp white plate boots that ended in a sharpened point at the toe and heel ends of her foot. No heels lifted her elegantly from the ground, and no curves were displayed. It was as if every angle and vertex was made to be something that could both protect and harm.

The plate on her thighs rose higher than the bronze had, and the skirt, which was midnight black instead of red, came lower. Two half skirts of scaled plates hung from hinges on her cuirass. The plates covered her rear and left only a thin line of unprotected fabric in front. A sash of midnight black cloth was tied around her waist, with a strand about two feet long flowing wistfully from her left hip. The doll she had found was nestled tightly inside the knot of her sash. Her cuirass itself was an intimidating, yet somehow beautiful thing. The bone white shell hugged her form as tightly as her corset had, but instead of ending at her breasts it continued up and just barely didn't touch the base of her neck guard, leaving enough room for her to still have full range of motion. Like her old corset, the cuirass had no connection to her arm plates, save for the pauldrons that covered her shoulders.

As far as she could tell, her leg plates, skirt, and cuirass were all not fused to her body, unlike her mask and arm plates. Her biceps and triceps were coated with plates that seemed to erupt from the skin there, not always linked together and not coherent or organized, much like the plates under her eyes. They stood as isolated islands of bone separated by thin white patches of skin. All along her armor was trimmed with red save for one single spot in the center of her sternum. Where the raven haired woman's arrow had pierced her there was a deep black hole in her cuirass that revealed a patch of skin through a tiny, smashed hole, just large enough for an arrow. There the skin was midnight black and rough to the touch. Small cracks spread no more than half an inch out across her cuirass from the hole, disrupting red trim.

She was a monster, a Grimm. The only thing that told her otherwise, that gave her hope, was her eyes.

She turned away from the glass and back towards the wall she had punched, studying the scroll as she did. The thing was blank, wiped, completely fresh, digitally at least. The screen itself was cracked in several places, but not unusable, the metal edges had nicks and dents in them, but nothing that would affect the electronics inside. It made sense that they'd give her one of the more worn scrolls. Though she knew it was blank she spent the next few hours looking through the device, searching for anything that could jog her memories.

Hours passed, and while the steady, harsh artificial light of her cell gave her no indication of the time of day outside, her ever wider yawns forced her to acknowledge the fact that she was tired. She grimaced as she thought of it, rest; it wasn't that she hated it, but the fact that she feared what might come with it. The darkness that covered her dreams was so much like the darkness that had enveloped her and tortured her for an eternity. And that voice, the voice that she could now understand, it had visited her again. How? How could it have come to her? She wasn't in the clutches of that horrid blackness anymore. Subconsciously her fingers traced the hole in her cuirass that the arrow had left, running along the chaotic ridges in the otherwise smooth plate. She yawned again as her mind battled for dominance against her fatigue, an ultimately doomed battle, she'd have to sleep eventually. But she fought nonetheless.

It wasn't until fatigue had overtaken her mind to the point that she could no longer think straight that she gave in. Pushing weakly off the ground she moved towards the back left corner and nestled her back in it, using the black sash that hung from her waist to shield her eyes from the light as she rested the side of her mask against the wall. One good thing about the bones covering her face was that they certainly protected her from the discomfort of resting her skin against a concrete wall.

In her dream she was dying. Kneeling and defenseless atop the tower of Beacon as the woman with raven hair shot her through the chest. As she died she saw faces accompanied by flickering forms appear behind the woman, seven of them in stark detail, the blond boy and her friends she recognized. Behind them stood flickering wisps that stared at her with baleful eyes. She wondered why they glared at her so, what had she done?

" _You left them alone, you went and got yourself killed like a fool and left them to suffer."_ A voice rasped from behind her. The voice sounded faintly familiar, though she wasn't sure from where. Fiery pain burned through her chest as she turned to face the source of the voice. It was a monster, a Grimm, it was _her._ It was her own voice that had spoken, or rather, her new one. Rasping and broken. She stared up at her own terrible new form from where she kneeled, no wonder the others had attacked her on sight when she looked like _that._ It smiled at her, a ghastly, empty thing, as if it only found joy in tremendous pain.

" _And then you came back, as one of the_ enemy, _as_ me." Suddenly the scene shifted and changed, the woman with the raven hair melting away into shadow as the world twisted and spun. She was back in the open Tarmac ground of the dockyard, head spinning, before she could figure out what was happening she felt three dull thuds against her stomach, as if someone had hit her with a small hammer. She looked up in shock to see the girl with the black hair and cat ears pointing a gun at her. She barely had time to register this fact before four more "punches" hit her on her right thigh. She rounded desperately to face the source, a boy in green with a pink streak of hair in a nest of black. Her eyes widened in fear and she began to run, but still the shots didn't stop. Again and again they hammered her armor, bruising the skin beneath; she had barely gotten ten feet away when she felt something tremendously cold and sharp slice one of the unprotected cracks of skin on her left arm. She barely had time to glance to her left, see a girl with white hair and a scarred eye casting a glyph before she felt something akin to a tractor collide with her back and launch her ten feet forwards, bouncing and skipping across the pavement.

Her whole body hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain in her heart as her friends mercilessly beat her. Her eyes opened just quick enough to see a girl with burning crimson eyes and flaming yellow hair descending a single fist towards her face. She rolled to the left and shot up in one fluid movement, just quick enough to dodge the fist that cracked the ground where she had been. Those flaming red eyes rounded on her and she sprinted away. She had to get to the containers, had to get to the shelter. She poured every ounce of energy she could into trying to reach the shelter as bullets slammed into her back and legs. She was so close now, so- _CRACK_.

She gave a questioning gurgle as she felt a tremendous ache explode across her back. She stumbled and fell to the ground, hands barely coming up in time to slow the impact. She strained to lift her head and look behind her, there stood a girl in a red hood, an equally blood red cloak billowing behind her. In her tiny hands was a tremendous sniper rifle, impossibly large compared to her small form. Pyrrha grunted in fear as the girl pulled back the bolt on the rifle, ejecting a massive shell casing the length of her face. Get away, she had to get away. She was so close to the containers now, so tantalizingly close, she couldn't move her legs, couldn't even feel them, the girl's bullet must've torn through her spine, but she could crawl. She _had_ to crawl.

She could hear the dull and slowing thuds of feet on concrete as they neared her, she could hear them encircling behind her, but it didn't matter, she was almost there. Her hands desperately clung to the concrete as she dragged her broken body ever closer, she was so close. There was only a single pair of feet moving behind her now, and they were getting closer. _No, no no no I'm almost there, please!_ She coughed blood and mumbled incoherent rasping noises as she neared the sanctuary of the containers. Then she felt pain explode across her unprotected back, almost enough to make her black out if she weren't so close. There was the squelching of blood as more pain shot across her back, and she was faintly aware of something metal sliding into the hole in her body the girls' bullet had made, but she couldn't feel it.

She was so close now, but something was preventing her from moving forward, something secured her body to the ground through her back. She had to know what it was, what was preventing her from safety.

It was him, the blond boy. His singing silver sword was stuck through the shattered remnant of her lower spine, out her stomach, and into the Tarmac below. She let out a low, strangled whine of pain, not at the glistening sword run through her back, but at the sight of the complete and utter hatred and disgust in the blond boy's eyes. The fact that he was the one preventing her from reaching safety.

She coughed, and more black blood flew in tiny droplets, decorating the Tarmac below. She watched as the boy removed the shield from his wrist and raised it with both hands above his head, the pointed bottom hanging above the base of her skull. One single, strangled sound emerged from her mouth as she stared into the inferno of hate that tore through the boy's sapphire eyes. "Jaune…" She begged as the shield point connected with the base of her skull and the darkness consumed her. A laugh echoed through it all, _the_ laugh. Inadvertently her body tensed in fear, she wanted to run away, but nothing responded. The pain in her stomach flared, the wound on her sternum began to burn, but she couldn't scream, only listen, mind barely conscious through the pain as the laugh continued on and on.

She woke with a start, her body rigid in fear and her hands gripping the base of her skull protectively. _Jaune..._ the name echoed again and again inside her head, gluing itself to the forefront of her mind with the boy's face. She sobbed, she sobbed in relief and joy, in pain and fear. She had remembered his name, there was hope. But what if when she found him, she only found the same burning hatred for her in his eyes that she had seen in her dream? What if he hated her? But did it matter what he felt? She could never be with him as she was now, she was a monster. But if she could see his face and hear his voice again she would be content, then she could leave him in peace and find the raven haired woman who had taken everything from her.

The tears stopped as another goal was added to her mental list. It was a short one, but twice as long as it had been now. Two items were listed in order of which they should be carried out. 1) Find Jaune. 2) Hurt the raven haired woman. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a goal she could work towards. Her eyes hardened with determination and her body went rigid with resolve. It was a goal she _would_ fulfill.

* * *

 **A/N: A more character focused chapter today, and our first non-Pyrrha POV chapter!**

 **Again, another wonky update time, sorry about that. Went to a dinner party with some family friends and my girlfriend tonight. Had some kickass steak and mushrooms and onions, all really really good.**

 **Also had an idea for a new fic focused on Ruby. Vomited up some words and have written the first half of the first draft of chapter one and finished chapter twelve of TIC, so that's very nice.**

 **Sorry that this chapter is also kinda blocky; gonna go back over it again this week if I can and smash some of these walls of texts into slopes instead, but I wanted to get it out tonight and on time.**

 **That's all for me guys, gonna hit the hay because I'm beat and have a headache. Night all!**


	7. Good News for People Who Love Bad News

There were five-hundred and sixteen bumps on the wall opposite the glass, and, counting the ones she had made, thirty-two cracks. She was just beginning to change walls to the one on her left, opposite the door, when she heard the interrogation room door close through the glass behind her.

She rose from her cross-legged sitting position and pulled out her scroll, opening it to the notes section. It was the usual group of three, Doctor Oobleck, the scary blond, and the portly man whose key characteristic was "bushy." She was surprised when the door continued to spew people into the continuingly ill sized interrogation room behind the glass.

First came a tall brunette girl, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses and her head adorned with a black beret, then a boy who appeared to be blind, his arms and face coated in scars with two giant blades running from his wrist up to his elbow. Following him was a giant of a boy, easily dwarfing even the teachers, on his back was a massive greatsword and running from his shoulder to his elbow were massive green plates, dented and scarred from many battles. The girl behind him was short, though she seemed even shorter behind the giant in green, even despite the tall rabbit ears that added at least a foot to her height. She entered with her head locked on the back of the giant, eyes refusing to even glance at the Grimm in the cell.

Pyrrha knew she knew them all from somewhere, especially the girl with the rabbit ears, but just like always no names came with the faces. She bore none of them ill will, in fact most of the emotions that came up were positive, they must have been friends, or acquaintances more likely.

The interrogation room opposite her was now absolutely packed, at most it was maybe meant for four people, and they had nearly doubled that, though she bet the giant counted for two. He was busy trying to make himself as small as possible, having to hunch significantly so his head didn't scrape along the ceiling. She couldn't help herself, she laughed.

At first a small giggle that rose to a chuckle, that developed into a hearty laugh, that devolved into tear-streaming, side-clenching hysterics. What was she doing? This wasn't _that_ funny, sure it was comical, but not worthy of hysterics. But she couldn't stop, it wasn't about the hunched over boy, or the cramped interior of the room, it was about the first funny thing she'd seen, that she could even remember clearly.

It was the sound of her own laughing that eventually rescued her from the ever growing cycle of hysterics, the one thing that tore her mind away from its ecstatic release and slapped some sense into it. It, like every other sound she made, was rasping, a gurgling shaken sound that evoked a reaction similar to if someone dragged a knife along a plate. It unsettled them. It unsettled _her_ , and that forced her to stop. Slowly, still having small giggles burst through, she managed to steady her fingers enough to type out a simple apology and explanation. _I'm sorry, it just seems quite cramped in there._

She held the screen up to the glass, looking at the hunched over giant as she did. She had a wide smile that refused to die, and small snorts escaped as she observed the the way he ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. Their faces were a mixed blessing, some, like the muted horror that the girl with bunny ears wore, killed what amusement she found in the situation. Meanwhile, the giant's blush and further in vain attempts to minimize his body only served to revive her recently beheaded humor.

"Can't say I've ever heard a Grimm laugh before." The girl with the beret muttered, though in the utter silence in the room it might has well have been shouting. "Scratch that off the list of things I didn't need," she sighed. Her face somehow managed to convey immense disgust as well immense neutrality at the same time, it was rather impressive actually.

Pyrrha's smile still refused to die, despite how much she knew it unnerved them. Hastily she pulled her scroll away from glass again to add to the message. _I'm sorry, I can't stop smiling, I know it must look ghastly._

"You're not wrong," the man in the Crimson coat sighed. The terrifying blond woman simply raised her eyebrow higher at Pyrrha's message before she spoke. "Anyway, the reason we are here today is because we'd like to ask you some more questions," she gestured to the four newcomers behind her, "Team CFVY was the closest team to Miss Nikos' that we have with us in Vale. We thought they might help corroborate your story." Clearly the blond was leading the questioning today. The doubt they placed on her hurt, but she understood their position, she wouldn't trust her either were she in their shoes.

"First off, where have you been?" The blond woman asked as she peered over her glasses. Pyrrha cocked her head questioningly then gestured down towards the floor with a finger. She had been here, all night, unless she meant- "No, I mean where have you been since the fall of Beacon?"

That...was a good question, where had she been? She couldn't really say "floating in darkness while in constant, indescribable pain," that wasn't a place. She stared at her scroll, fingers unmoving as she tried to figure out an answer to the woman's question. _I do not know, all I remember is the fall of Beacon, my fight atop the tower, then… Darkness, but a physical darkness. It enveloped me and tortured me. I'm sorry, I know that isn't a place, nor a good answer._

She held the scroll up to the glass, eyes locked with the woman as if willing her to understand her apology was sincere.

"Sounds ominous." The girl with the beret said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, but her face still impassive.

"Do you know how long it's been since Beacon fell?" The woman inquired again, glancing at a clipboard she held in front of her. Pyrrha pulled the screen away and cocked her head thoughtfully. How long has it been? The darkness didn't help her sense of time, but she she thought it must've been, well, a while. At least a few weeks as the city had been evacuated and the fighting around Beacon seemed to have ceased, but Grimm still roamed. There was some overgrowth but she wasn't sure how long that took to establish itself after such devastation, did that mean months had passed?

It couldn't have been an absurd amount of time, the faces before her matched those in her memory extremely well, save for one or two new scars among the younger ones, and a few new grey hairs in the older they looked almost exactly the same. She thought about it a little longer before gathering her thoughts and typing. _No, I don't. If I guessed I would say at the most a few months?_

Doctor Oobleck sighed sadly as he read her answer, the crimson man beside him had much the same reaction, the girl with the rabbit ears looked away in pain. Clearly her guess had been off.

"I'm afraid not, it's been a year and two days since Beacon fell."

 _Very_ off. She could do nothing but blink, her mouth may have fallen open, but she didn't notice. A whole year?! How did…what did...what?! She didn't know what to say, what _did_ you say when you've been dead and tortured for a year before coming back as a monster? Her shoulders slumped, how much had changed? Not much apparently based off the state Beacon was in. She just hoped Jaune and her friends-wait! Jaune and her friends, were they still alive?! They had to be, right? She ripped the scroll off the glass and tapped out her message as fast as she could. _Jaune and my friends, are they still alive? Are they alright?_

She slammed the screen against the glass, her arm trembling with fear. They _had_ to be alive, if they weren't...could she mourn those whose names she couldn't remember? How cruel would it be that all this time they thought her dead, and when she finally comes back, they've all died instead.

She was so caught up running through dreadful scenarios in her mind that she didn't notice the group before her reactions to her sudden concern. Frankly they hadn't been expecting it; though it made perfect sense, it was still hard to think of the Grimm before them as being Pyrrha Nikos in even the slightest of ways mentally.

The three teachers all shared a glance, while the girl with the rabbit ears gripped the giant's hand tightly, and the one with the sunglasses leaned over to whisper in the blind boy's ear.

"As far as we know the members of teams RWBY and JNPR are still alive," the blond woman spoke. Pyrrha let out an immense breath that she'd been holding, the trembling in her arm beginning to cease. "However," Pyrrha's body tensed. "Team RWBY was split after the accident, Weiss Schnee remains in Atlas, Yang Xiao-Long on her home island of Patch, Blake Belladona's current whereabouts are unknown, though she has been sighted and confirmed alive. Ruby Rose has led the remaining members of your old team, Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkyrie, to Minstral, there they hope to find the one they believe to have murdered you."

Pyrrha stiffened. This was good news wasn't it? All her friends were alive, scarred and shaken from the fall of Beacon to be sure, but alive. Not only that, but she was also told that the only two clear objectives she had in mind were now both conveniently located in her home city of Minstral. This was excellent! Then why did she feel so on edge? What was eating away at her mind?

 _That woman incapacitated Ozpin himself after stealing the Fall Maiden's powers, then she killed me. They're no match for her._

That was it, she was _worried_ about them, they'd ran off after one of the most powerful people in the world, four ex-first-year students at Beacon Academy. But _how?_ Surely someone would've tried to stop them, and no sane person would've assigned them such a mission, right? And if they hadn't been assigned it then why hasn't anyone tried to bring them back? They'd let them pursue her for a whole _year?!_

She pulled the scroll down from the glass again, her fingers flitting across the screen. _Why has no one brought them back? You know what that woman did to Ozpin and me, you know what she gained from Amber._

She pressed the screen directly in front of the blond woman's face, the best she could do when it comes to talking one on one. The woman's face hardened somewhat as she read the message.

"I assure you, had we the resources or the manpower to bring them back we would have, but we do not. Part of me even thinks they'll do more good there, after all what would we be bringing them back to?" She spat the last words out with particular venom, though Pyrrha wasn't sure if the blond woman was mad at her or herself. Her words made sense though, the force here clearly didn't have enough manpower to do anything but try to prevent the Grimm from completely claiming Vale. Anything else and they would risk losing the city entirely. But that didn't change the fact that should her friends encounter the raven haired woman they would certainly engage her. And they'd certainly die.

Her _friends_ , she still didn't know their names; sure, the woman had given her names, but whose were they? The names bounced themselves around her mind, trying and failing to stay on a face. But, should she ask? They already rightly doubted it was really her, what happened if she told them she couldn't remember her best friend's names? _I can remember Jaune though._ Six to go in that case.

She had to ask, it would be wrong not to. But who to ask? The blond woman had told her that out of everyone in the room she had been closest to the girl with bunny ears. Maybe her then? She would know them best, but surely anyone in the room could tell her, right?

The giant held an arm out in front of the small faunus, and something clanged against the glass in front of her, derailing her train of thought. She watched as a bullet casing clattered to the floor before the glass. With a jump she realized she'd been unintentionally staring down the faunus. The poor girl looked particularly unnerved, and the one with the shades looked particularly pissed. "Done staring?" She growled, eyes menacingly peeking from above her sunglasses. She nodded dumbly, pulling the scroll back as she typed an apology. _I'm sorry, I was lost in thought._

"You're lost in more ways than that, monster." The sunglassed girl spat, Pyrrha flinched. She didn't need reminding about what she'd become, her reflection did that for her.

"You claim to be Miss Nikos," the blond woman spoke, "how do you plan to prove it?"

Pyrrha opened her mouth to speak before remembering that she couldn't, at least, comprehensibly. She yanked the scroll away and was all poised to type before she realized she had no idea. She had _no idea_ how she was going to prove it to these people that she really was Pyrrha Nikos.

Most of her memories were blurred and indistinct, the only clear ones were the night of her death and all the events that unfolded. She could remember the faces of her friends and how she felt, but not their names. The only thing that she could think of was her semblance, but even that was so pathetically weak at the moment that it may not even be worth it. Her fingers began to move. _I don't know, my aura and semblance are both almost nonexistent, though I'm not sure why. Probably because of my appearance. I can hardly remember anything clearly except the night I died. I remember the faces of my friends and the emotions that go with them, but no names. And when you mentioned them I knew they were the names of my friends, but I still don't know who is who._ She thought for a second. _Well, except for one: Jaune Arc. I remembered his name last night after a dream._ After I begged him for my life, she thought.

Their reactions were...mixed. An eye roll from Sunglasses, a look of extreme pity from Ears, a hardening of the jaw to contain emotions from Oobleck, and calm observation from the blond woman in front of her.

"Do you remember any of our names?" The man with the bushy mustache spoke for the first time. She shook her head sadly and he grunted. "And you said _almost_ nonexistent. What do you mean?"

 _I was injured from a fifteen foot drop off the remains of Beacon Tower's elevator cable, that's how I sprained my ankle, that's why I was limping when Doctor Oobleck encountered me. However I didn't feel exhausted like I used to whenever my aura was low, I felt fine, at a peak. Since then it has been healing faster than if I had no aura, so I must have some. And on the way over I tried to use my semblance on a car door, I should've been able to rip it off easily, but I only made it wiggle._

Doctor Oobleck's eyebrows came together in a bridge of concentration, one of his hands rising to his chin as he thought.

"Can you show us?" Mustache asked. She nodded in return, not seeing any reason not to. She focused on the spent bullet casing that had fallen before the glass, willing it to rise. Remarkably, it did, though the thing _was_ tiny, she had controlled a whole swarm of cans both bigger and heavier than this before, this was child's play. She could hear it clang back to the floor as she changed her focus to the door leading out of her cell. It glowed a soft black and wiggled slightly in its frame, but didn't budge. She poured every ounce of willpower into it, and it surrendered a tiny groan in return, but nothing more. Shaking her head and sighing she looked back at the group before her. They were shocked, Ears was even trembling a bit, though whether from fear or the glistening and unshed tears in her eyes she wasn't sure. The teacher's eyes were slightly widened, clearly none of them had actually been expecting her to be able to do that. Yanking the scroll away, she hurried to correct their thinking. _It's not impressive at all compared to what I used to be able to do, pathetic actually._

She raised the scroll to the glass to clarify everything.

"I see," the blond woman replied. "Well at least you have some proof, no matter how 'pathetic.' Still-"

"Glynda I was wondering if we could adjourn for a while, I have some things I'd like to talk about with you," Oobleck said. The blond woman apparently named Glynda shrugged and gestured for them to leave, it was only when the four adolescents and the portly man began to make for the door as well that she realized _all_ of them were leaving. She rapt her fingers against the glass, the bone plates on them making it much louder than she intended. Silently they all turned to her as she typed out her message on the scroll. _I was wondering if I could speak to the Faunus privately, you said I was closest with her._

Ears' ears began to shake softly at that idea, but before she could muster her voice to protest Oobleck leaped in. "A capital idea, there's no telling what all she could help you recall!"

Sunglasses turned towards the Doctor, mouth locked in a determined line. "I'm not leaving her alone with that _thing."_ Pyrrha couldn't help but notice the emphasis.

"Well then we could leave Professor Port in here with her, if anything should start to go awry he can bring things back under control." Oobleck looked confidently towards the bushy man she now knew was called Professor Port.

"Why of course I can! The very idea that an injured humanoid Grimm locked in a cell has a chance at all wounds me, Barty!" Port scoffed, his large belly jiggling from the laughter that followed his statement. All heads turned towards the blond woman and Pyrrha realized that Blon- _Glynda_ had been studying her this whole time, her eyes locked on her face and expressions as she listened to the conversation before her. A second passed, followed by two more, before she finally nodded.

"Very well, Professor Port and Miss Scarletina if you would stay here and listen to what it has to say while we talk outside." As Glynda turned to leave she gave Pyrrha one last studious glance before heading out, heels clacking evenly on the concrete floor. As the room emptied out Ears seemed to get more and more uncomfortable, scooting ever closer to Port. When it was finally empty, and Ears was only a scant foot away from the Professor, she removed the scroll and began to type. Had to be something simple and small to start with, based off the girl's reactions she certainly couldn't just leap into the pool of "what the Dust has happened" in the last year. _I remember your face, but not your name. Could you tell me it, please?_

She pressed the screen up against the glass before the Faunus, flinching internally as Ears' eyes widened when she realized she was now in a direct conversation with a monster claiming to be her dead friend. "Velvet Scarletina," she muttered, so soft Pyrrha could barely hear it. Velvet, the name and face instantly clicked and she wondered how she hadn't been able to associate them before. Would this get easier the more she remembered? Could she remember anymore or would the memories always be fuzzy? _Velvet_ , she thought, not being able to prevent a smile sprouting across her face. The name and face fit together perfectly. _Two down._

She pulled the phone back again from glass, hardly noticing Velvet's unease at her ghastly smile. _Thank you, Velvet. Would you feel comfortable talking to me about our friends? I need help remembering who is who._ A stupid question, really. Of course the girl wouldn't feel _comfortable_ talking to her, but she hoped she'd talk nonetheless. Velvet glanced at the professor next to her before nodding hesitantly as she met her eyes. Hands shaking in excitement Pyrrha pulled the phone away again. _Thank you so much, Velvet. I was wondering first about two faces, they always seem to be together, side by side, one was a short redheaded girl, with short hair and a hammer. The other was a tall boy clad in green with black hair and a single pink streak. Do you remember their names?_

She pressed the phone against the glass, finally she would remember! She knew she was especially close with these two, part of a team lead by Jaune if what Glynda had said was true. One quiet and the other boisterous, she knew so much vague information about what they were like, but still no names had come.

"Lie Ren is the boy, Nora Valkyrie is the girl." Velvet said, nerves somewhat eased, maybe she'd gotten use to the smile? Or she didn't expect her to be so easy to please. _Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie._ The names were perfect, and her grin grew ever wider, short specific clips of memory shot through her mind, an adoration of pancakes for Nora, a comical apron for Ren. This was going well so far.

She yanked the phone back again, internally jumping for joy as she did. _Thank you! What about the team RWBY Glynda mentioned? I remember a tiny girl with silver eyes and a large scythe, a black haired cat-Faunus with Amber eyes and a bow, a pure white girl with a scar across one of her blue eyes, and a blond with a cowlick and waist length hair, with eyes that shift between lilac and crimson._

Again she pressed the screen against the glass, and again she couldn't prevent the buildup of excitement as Velvet opened her mouth to respond. "The silver-eyed girl is Ruby Rose, the black haired one is Blake Belladona, the all white one is Weiss Schnee, and the blond is Yang Xiao-Long." She hesitated, debating whether she should say more before deciding for it anyway. "The blond woman here with the glasses is Glynda Goodwitch, the girl with the sunglasses on my team is Coco Adel, the large boy is Yatsuhashi, and the red one is Fox Alistair."

Pyrrha's grin widened tremendously, eyes gleaming with excitement as so many pieces fell into place. Five more than she had even asked for, maybe Velvet was becoming more comfortable after all. More important than that though were all the faces that had names now in her memory, and the tiny snippets of memory that returned for each one: an obsession with cookies here, an incredible amount of bad puns there, so little, but compared to what she had before it was a boggling amount. And all she could do was smile and bounce softly on the heels of her feet. This seemed to give Velvet the encouragement she needed, she had just opened her mouth to tell Pyrrha everything she could remember about everyone when something happened.

A splitting pain erupted at the forefront of Pyrrha's mind and a voice scraped against every thought she had. But not just any voice, _the_ voice, the one that had mocked her during her torture and plagued her dreams. Her knees buckled and she collapsed on the floor of her cell in kneeling position, eyes wide and only showing pain she stared at the glass before her but saw nothing. Her mind could only register the pain. Faintly she registered that her mouth opened and she began to wail, but she didn't mean to do so. Her hands shot to the sides of her head, clutching and scraping desperately in an attempt to alleviate the mental torture, but nothing helped. _Everyone around you will die_ , the voice spoke matter-of-factly, _my children are coming. Entertain me._ The voice stopped and for a second and the pain subsided, only to be renewed with a fury as the laugh tore through her mind. Wave after wave of pain wracked her body, though with every wave the pain diminished.

Eventually her mind was able to force through it, focus on her surroundings. At first all she could hear was the sound of blood pumping through her body, head aching with every beat. Then she could register the sound of her ragged gasps for air. Her brain began to accept the signals coming from her wide, tremendously dilated eyes. However it took her another few seconds to actually realize anything about her surroundings. She was still in her cell, the harsh, artificial light seemed to burn her eyes, but it was nothing compared to the recent pain. She registered the glass before her, and the crowd that shouldn't be there. It used to just be Port and Velvet, where had everyone else come from? Her eyes trailed faintly to the door to the observation room that had been thrown open. The door, that made sense.

She began to register the eyes and faces of everyone in the room, all staring at her in absolute shock save for the two looks of concern coming from Velvet, who was in the middle of the group, and Oobleck who was closest to the door. _Everyone around you will die_ , the thought echoed in her mind as she met Oobleck's gaze, and her mind snapped back to reality, her head shot around the room looking for the scroll, somehow it had ended up in the middle of her cell. She scrambled on her hands and knees for it desperately, as if everyone's lives depended on her getting it as soon as possible. Which they very well might.

Her fingers finally grasped the cold steel of the edges and she hastily ripped them apart, almost breaking the device. She typed as fast as she could before rounding back towards the glass, she moved as quick as she could towards it, legs almost giving out as she rose in a split second. Her eyes met the blond woman's, Glynda's, if what she remembered was true, and she slammed the scroll against the glass, causing the whole frame to flex and groan. Glynda's eyes focused on the single sentence that was written on the scroll before her: _Grimm are coming._

* * *

 **A/N: Hello all! Just moved into my dorm this week so things have been kinda hectic, as such I haven't had time to write any more for TIC or my untitled Ruby fic which kinda sucks. But it's been a good busy which is nice.**

 **Debating whether I should switch to updating on Sundays from now on versus the typical Monday, really it's down to what you guys prefer.**

 **On another note if anyone wants to volunteer for me to bounce off ideas from for this story and my Ruby one I would very much appreciate it. No proofreading or anything, just mutual brainstorming.**

 **Have good one, guys!**


	8. Code 142

Silence. Silence filled the room before her, no shouts of worry or orders or the clanging of boots against concrete as they rushed to prepare defenses. Just silence. She stared at Glynda, and Glynda stared at her screen. Oddly enough, it was Velvet who spoke up first.

"What do you mean, 'Grimm are coming?'" She asked, eyes locked on hers.

 _I don't know, I heard a voice in my mind, the voice that I heard the whole year I was in the Darkness, the one who changed me. She said Grimm are coming and that everyone around me is going to die. Please, you have to believe me, there's going to be an attack._

Coco sighed, cocking her head to the side. "You heard a voice in your mind?" She nodded. "The same voice of whatever turned you into this?" Another nod. Coco turned to face Port, "Are we sure Grimm can't be schizophrenic?" Pyrrha recoiled in shock. She wasn't mad! She was a monster with distorted memories and a menagerie of emotions and conflicts raging inside her mind, but she wasn't _mad_. She pulled the scroll away from the glass indignantly. Typing as fast as she could.

 _I'm not mad, I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me. What harm could it do to raise an alert? Please._

"She's right about that, what harm could it do to put everyone on alert and at the ready?" Oobleck conceited, giving her a fatherly once over to make sure that the pain had passed.

" _She?"_ Coco retorted, staring at the man in shock. " _It_ is a Grimm. We have no reason to-"

"Doctor Oobleck, check the perimeter defenses as fast as you can," the man nodded once before disappearing from room in a green blur. "Professor Port, gather those who are on rest at the central courtyard, be sure to check the barracks for any who might be sleeping." The man's eyebrows raised in delight at the prospect of waking sleeping students, finally an opportunity to bellow as loud as he could. "I'll get right to it," he said and marched out of the room, whistling a lively war tune as he did.

"Miss Adel-"

"Wait wait wait _wait_." Coco shouted, her arms placed indignantly upon her hips. "Are we going to actually _trust_ this thing?"

Glynda rounded on the girl, eyes burning with fury. " _Never_ interrupt me again, Miss Adel." The two had a staring contest, one which Coco quickly lost as she lowered her head and nodded.

"As I was _saying_ , Miss Adel, take your team and those on guard duty to the outer defenses immediately, I need you to push back any first waves that may be coming." Coco nodded reluctantly before gesturing to her team to follow as she left. As she watched them go she noticed Velvet hesitate slightly at the door, before deciding to turn around and give her a timid wave goodbye. She was gone by the time Pyrrha had recovered from the shock of friendliness and remembered she should return the gesture. Pyrrha turned to face the only other living thing in the room, typing a quick thank you on her scroll as she held it in front of the glass.

"I am not doing this for you," she said curtly, "I am doing this because it is the intelligent thing to do." With that she turned, quite literally, on her heels and stormed out of the room, drawing her riding crop out from the crook of her arm. Glynda stormed through the door, and, despite her not placing a finger upon it, it slammed shut behind her; leaving Pyrrha staring at an empty room, mind frantic with worry as her reflection stared back at her.

She turned from the glass and began to pace mechanically about the perimeter of the room. She wasn't sure when the Grimm were coming except that it was soon. Not much help there. She was sure, however, that if anyone died tonight their blood would be on her hands. She may not have swung the claw that killed them, but their deaths would be a direct result of her choosing to seek out the people left in Vale. A dull, painful thud still echoed through her head with every pulse of her heart. It was a manageable pain though now, and quickly fading to the back of her mind as potential guilt swam through her conscious. Her boots echoed around the room, her thoughts lost in endless terrible scenarios with one common theme: them being her fault.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, there was no clock in her room, nor was there one in the observation room. The scenarios that raced through her mind and the utter feeling of helplessness she felt made it feel like hours had passed, though she doubted that was the case. She was ripped from her thoughts by a sound, a single faint scream that barely managed to reach her ears. It was muffled tremendously by the concrete surrounding her cell, but it was there. It sounded like it was someone calling a name in panic; not the usual, guttural and incoherent screams of battle. Her head snapped around the room, thoughts turning to the scream: whose name was it? Who was screaming? She was pretty sure why they were screaming: someone they cared about was in danger. But how much danger?

The ceiling of her cell shook softly, dust and pebbles drifting through the tiny cracks already there. Another scream, followed by a faint roar and another shaking of the ceiling. She _had_ to get out. People were getting hurt up there, she had to help, not only because it was her own fault, but because it was the right thing to do. The _only_ thing she would allow herself to do. But how? How to get out? Her eyes scanned the room for any weaknesses, but she found nothing. The door was a solid and thick steel, the rest concrete, save for the glass window leading to the observation room. Three feet tall, and six feet wide she would definitely be able to fit through it, but she would have to smash it with something. Again she scanned the room and found what she already knew from her days spent here: it was totally and completely empty. Just her and the concrete. It was then she remembered, her eyes flitting to the crater she had made in the wall with her fist. She was never strong enough to make such a dent while she had been human, but now? Maybe.

She looked down at her armored, white fist adorned with crimson spikes, flexing the armored fingers there. She moved towards the glass, placing her palm over it as she did so, this glass would be tough, absolutely. She was in a prison cell designed to hold criminals during questioning after all. But even then it had been designed to hold humans, and she...well she wasn't completely human anymore, was she?

Taking a breath and removing her hand from the glass she took a step back, right fist raised. There was really only one way to find out. With a shout she threw all her weight behind her fist and punched the glass. The impact sent a thrum up her arm, and the glass didn't explode in a shower of shards as she'd hoped. But, it did yield and crack some. Curiously, she removed her fist; save for the dull shock that had first ran through her arm, she felt fine, there wasn't a scrape on the plate of her gloves, and the spikes on her knuckles were unchipped. The glass was not so lucky. Four deep gouges where her spikes had struck had been etched into the surface, tiny sparkles of shattered glass fell from the puny pits as she stared at them. Drawing her fist back again she punched the glass, cracks webbed across the surface, the gouges were almost half an inch deep now.

Again, the roof shook as she heard more muffled and monstrous howls in the distance. Her friends were running out of time and she _needed_ to help them. Gritting her teeth she drew her fist back again and struck the same spot with all the force she could muster. The glass split apart with a crunch as the center gave way and crashed backwards against the tile floor. The chunk shattered even further as it collided with cold tile, sending tiny spikes and chunks twirling across the smooth surface. Tiny bits still tinkled as they split off from the larger chunks still adorning the edge of the frame.

Carefully, she clambered through the hole, armored plates scraping softly against the shattered spears of glass that reached out to her for revenge. As she pulled her last leg through she noticed that the frame for the glass was particularly thick, the glass itself seeming to be a little more than an inch thick. A small smile crept across her face as she examined her hand and the thickness of the glass frame, she didn't have any aura, but after punching through more than an inch of bullet-proof glass, she was still unscahted. Her armor was proving quite useful.

Forcing her mind away from her new armor and strength she rushed towards the door of the interrogation room, throwing it open and launching herself into a concrete hallway. Harsh, artificially white light streamed from bulbs overhead, while gray tile lined the floors. To her left the hall seemed to continue for about three more doors before ending in more concrete, to her right the hallway stretched on for about fifty yards, signs hung every fifty feet, with EXIT written across them illuminated by red bulbs. An arrow underneath pointed towards the end of the hallway on her right. It took her all of about a second to register all of this before dashing down the right side.

She hoped everyone was unhurt, though that seemed unlikely. Bone boots thudded against tile, she was halfway now, the sounds of battle increased as every step took her closer to the source. Shouted orders, the clanging of steel, roaring Grimm, explosions, and discharged dust rounds drifted down into her hallway from a staircase in front of her. She leaped to the stairs, wasting no momentum, and easily cleared the first four, and so she climbed, taking the steps four at a time.

The sign on the landing told her she was on B2, so logic told her that the ground floor would be the one two up from where she was. She dashed up the next two flights of stairs, hardly slowing her stride, she was on B1 now, just one more floor to go. The sounds were louder now, she could make out words among the orders and calls, hidden behind those were the roars of anger and pain, of both human and Grimm. She could see the ground floor doorway now, the door itself was removed from its hinges, though where it had wound up she wasn't sure. Hurtling through the empty frame she found herself at what must have once been an office area, where the police of Vale must've processed any that came through, now though the desks were pushed together in groups of four, plates of food spread across them. Half eaten MREs and canned foods on plastic plates, a few spilled drinks here and there. It only furthered her worry, most of who remained must have been in the middle of dinner based on the brilliant orange hue the setting sun turned the sky. They were caught off guard, and that was very very bad.

Exit, she had to find the exit, she scanned the room until she found another EXIT sign, identical to the ones below, hanging on a closed double door to her left. She sprinted towards it and barreled through the doors into a large lobby area with two more large, oak doors intricately decorated with carvings of two crossed axes with a shield overlaying them both: the symbol of the Vale Police Department.

The sounds of battle were no longer muffled, cries of pain and fury, roars of challenge and animal whimpers, and an order to get the wounded to safety scratched at her ears from just beyond the oaken portal. She sped up, she had been the reason for those wounded, she _would_ protect them; not nearly enough atonement, but it would have to do for now. She sprinted towards the doors, bracing an arm before her as she barreled into them, forcing them open so far and fast they banged against the brick walls of the building.

Before her stretched a wide, hexagonal courtyard with a twenty foot fountain in the middle, at the far two vertices of the hexagon two streets entered into the plaza, all the other walls were those of buildings, what once must've been important docking and shipping offices were now improvised fortresses. Ruined fortified positions occupied the building corners closest to the two streets, the one building that separated the two streets was almost nothing more than an empty, burned out shell with only three walls left standing. The paving stones of the courtyard were pockmarked with craters, the fountain itself once had a statue on it, but all that remained were two feet and half an ankle rooted to the top.

The far two streets oozed grimm of all shapes and ages, the majority of which were Creeps, followed by Beowulfs, then Ursa. A dozen pairs of Boarbatusks roamed the courtyard, their rolls ripping new paths through the paving stones. Fully grown Deathstalkers stabbed and swiped, and she could even see the tops of a pair of Goliaths cresting over the far shell of a building as they trudged through the twin streets. She had been trained all her life for combat, fighting, and winning, tournament after tournament, training against student and Grimm alike. Her mind was used to the fight, but it was not used to the chaos of a full scale battle.

The hunters were spread out loosely among the courtyard with no cohesive formation, a fair number of shots rang out from the rooftops, indicating that some projectile users had been stationed on the roofs during the attack, but still not nearly enough to provide the cover fire required against this mass of Grimm. The hunters were slowly, but steadily being pushed back towards a building on the left side of the plaza; the roof fire seemed heaviest from there, and she could make out people dragging or carrying those who could no longer fight inside.

A roar and a yell dragged her attention back to the main fight, just in time to dodge the remains of a Beowulf flying past her right and smashing one of the doors behind her. Her senses returned and she dashed forwards across the plaza. An explosion tore through the air by the fountain as earth, chunks of paving stone, and dismembered Grimm parts rained down. Her feet moved without conscious thought, pushing off from the smoking remains of an Ursa and leaping to the ground, sprinting as soon as her boots made contact with the stones below. She had to get there, had to save them before anyone else got hurt because of her. All of this was her fault.

She was twenty feet from the fountain when a familiar voice tore through the air, her eyes snapped to the source and she saw Velvet Scarletina being launched thirty feet by a swipe from an Ursa Major. Velvet's back and leg collided against the fountain with a crack of stone and bone as it crumbled. Her heart caught in her throat until she heard a faint moan of pain. The Ursa Major roared in triumph and rushed her friend. A direct blow like that against a small girl like Velvet would leave her easily in the red of her Aura, another swipe would shatter it completely and quite possibly kill her. And that was if she hadn't taken any hits already.

That could not happen.

Pyrrha poured every ounce of energy she had into her legs and ran.

* * *

"Velvet!" A and panicked voice tore across the plaza, and she saw the other members of her team, Team CFVY, locked in combat with a Deathstalker over forty feet away. There was no way they could reach her in time, and Velvet knew that. She tried to get up, but pain shot through her leg and she noticed that a piece of bone from her shin tore through the skin. That wasn't right, she thought, her mind addled with pain and probably a concussion from the impact. She was faintly aware of someone calling to her, shouting at her to move, but the pain and the roar of the Ursa Major scant feet away drowned it out.

She'd messed up, isolating herself from her team for ranged attacks, but she'd done a hell of a lot of damage with her copy of Ruby's sniper. Somehow though, the stench of the approaching Ursa Major's breath as it reared up on its hind legs and roared in triumph over her made that less worth it.

Her arms scrabbled for her camera on her right, but it was just out of reach. The Major raised its claw over its head and it had just begun to descend when her fingertips made contact with the camera. She was too slow, she knew it and the Ursa knew it, but still she stared defiantly at the creature that would be her end, eyes hunting for a solution to a problem she could not solve. White and red flashed above her head, and a massive crunching of bone and the squishy rending of flesh filled her ears, contesting with a shocked grunt from the Major. Her eyes told her the creature now lay on its back as a figure clad in white with red trim pummeled it again and again, but her brain had no idea what to do with that information. It was filled with questions.

The figures fists were stained an ever deeper black as they tore through the Major's body, contrasting sharply with the otherwise ivory white coloring. Every time a fist connected bone cracked and blood spurted from the Major; its flailing and grunting growing ever weaker with each strike. Finally, its arms collapsed limply at its sides, the grunting stopped, but still the figure beat on, smashing its skull until only the jutting of the spine from the neck and a black smear upon the pavement indicated anything had been there at all. The battle still raged around Velvet, her leg was still on fire with pain, but her mind could only register the white and red figure as she stood and approached her. Her mind was a conflict of fear and relief, as Pyrrha Nikos gingerly slid her arms underneath her body and lifted her with both arms, holding her like a large dog. Her eyes locked with the blazing emeralds of her rescuer and the attempt at a comforting smile that her mouth had twisted into. It was a ghastly sight, and she found her mind fighting over whether to be unnerved or soothed by it. Her mind was filled with questions, but she managed to push them to the side.

"Thank you," she uttered quietly to the creature that held her as they ran towards the designated medical building. Pyrrha's smile grew wider, and so did Velvet's unease.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello everyone! This week has been busy as all hell for me, move in, first classes, new friends, goddamn ridiculousness around every corner.**

 **Got to start a new D &D campaign though, but that's all the spare time I've had. Let me know what you guys and gals think of this chapter, can't really make up my mind on how I feel about it.**

 **See y'all soon!**


	9. A New Path

The rapid pounding of bone boots on the flagstones drowned out the sounds of battle around her as she sprinted for the medical building. Her heart hammered away in her chest, abnormally high compared to her usual combat rate. Then again, this combat was abnormal as well compared to "normal." Her mind was pulled back to the those moments where she had, quite literally, bashed the Ursa Major's skull in. Black chunks of flesh knitted to white bone still clung to the spikes on her gauntlets, now stained black with the Grimm's blood. Small wisps of smoke curled up from the chunks and blood, they would dissolve in time, she wouldn't even need to clean her hands.

It was all very surreal, she'd never killed a Grimm with her bare hands before, and certainly never so brutally. Fear dribbled its way through her mind, and the brutality of her kill was not the reason. It was the fact that she had _enjoyed_ it. She had always been neutral about killing Grimm, it was something that needed to be done; was her job as a huntress. To leave any Grimm alive was to at some point doom some poor human to death at its hands later in time; after all, their sole purpose was to exterminate humanity, wasn't it? That said, she had never found joy in the killing of Grimm, but nor did she find any distaste at all for the action. It was her duty, and she would see it done. But back there, it had felt so _good_. She was almost close to laughing involuntarily in joy at the way the flesh tore and the bones shattered by her hand. It wasn't just that it was pent up rage and frustration, and the joy of finally being able to be in combat again. It was something...more within her, and she was terrified. Just how deeply had the darkness tainted her? How could she still be human at all?

Her mind spiraled through endless cycles of questions as she drew closer to the medical building. Dashing through the open door, she found the nearest Doctor, an older man with ashen hair and a look of authority, and marched up to him, offering him the Faunus in her arms. But when the man turned all he could do was stare, his jaw went slack and his eyes went wider than his mouth. The look of authority melted from his face, replaced with one of pure shock.

That was probably understandable, all things considered, she thought. Patiently she stood there trying as hard as she could to get the man's eyes off of her and towards the injured friend in her arms. She was practically shoving the girl in the man's face, and still he simply stood there and said nothing, though his face was now completely drained of color.

"I have a broken leg." Oh thank Dust for Velvet. The faunus' voice made the man jump, his head snapping to the source before his mind processed the words and changed the object of his focus to the girl's twisted leg. The man seemed to regain some composure, his focus narrowing exclusively to the patient before him.

"Follow me to the Light Casualties Room." He ordered briskly, avoiding eye contact with the creature carrying the injured Faunus. The man led them inside a room ten feet behind him and on the left, crammed with as many beds from across the Industrial District, it held a total of nineteen injured hunters. The wounds varied, but all seemed equal in severity, broken bones, torn muscles, and deep gashes. All dangerous, but none with the possibility of being immediately fatal. She could feel their eyes on her, but she would not meet their gaze. She couldn't bear to see the hate she presumed was there.

"Here," the man gestured to an empty bed near the left wall of the room. She set Velvet down as carefully as she could on the bleached white sheets, and as soon as she was out of her grasp the doctor descended upon her, asking her questions rapid fire as he poked softly at the leg. It was clear she was no longer needed. She stepped back as quietly as one could in armor and made for the door. Glancing back she locked eyes with Velvet, and a genuine smile adorned the faunus' face for the first time she could remember.

She closed the door behind her, and turned back towards the front door, only to be buffeted to the wall as eight or ten hunters and huntresses sprinted full tilt down the hall. She stuck to the wall as they barreled through the hallways, shouting warnings and sprinting towards the stairs. Many of them eyed her warily as they passed, gripping their weapons tighter in their hands, but none made any moves to attack her, so at least there was that. It was only when the last one passed her that she realized all of them were wielding some form of ranged weapon. _The roof_ , she thought, they'd all be heading there, where their weapons would give them the greatest advantage possible in this situation. But then how many were outside?

She made her way briskly towards the double doors leading out, one was held open by a boy with a large mace and close cropped brown hair. Winchester, she realized, as he opened his mouth to bellow out to the courtyard.

"First squad in and on their way up, Professor!" His voice was solid and calm, though it carried clearly across the din of battle, a leader's voice.

"Good Mr. Winchester, now please round up the second squad and send them up." The shouted response of Goodwitch drifted to her ears over the roars and steel of battle. The boy in front of her hefted his mace and charged back out through the door he had held open, unwittingly followed by herself. The scene outside had changed, where before there had been no cohesive formation or battle plan there now was an organized defense. A line of hunters brandishing melee weapons stretched in a semicircle fifty or so feet from the open doors of the medical building. Shots rang out from the windows behind her as civilians and lightly wounded hunters alike provided fire support from the safety of the medical building.

The dramatic show of adaptability in a dire situation was nothing short of incredible. Hunters really were a different breed.

Forest green pupils surrounded by red roamed the backs of the hunters that formed the last line of defense to the medical building, scanning for any weak spots where she could be of use. All the professors were present on the ground, along with a mix of veteran hunters and younger ex-hunters-in-training. A steady stream of eight or so hunters backed out of the line every so often as Winchester tapped their backs and spoke, sprinting back towards the medical building as quickly as possible. Each one was armed with a ranged weapon. Her alabaster skin and ivory mask roamed again along the line once more.

Forty-two hunters held the line. Her hands tensed at her side. _That wasn't enough_ , she thought as she dashed forwards, towards a young man with a trimmed mohawk and dual wielded daggers.

He had just rolled under a beowulf's horizontal swipe, and didn't see the Boarbatusk charging from his right.

Her boots pounded on the flagstones as she rushed to intercept the creature. Ten feet. A boisterous and jolly laugh resounded from somewhere on her left, punctuated by the howls of dying Grimm. Five feet. An Ursa Major surrounded by a purple hue shot fifteen feet in the air before being rended apart by an invisible force, each spike and spine and fragment of bone rocketing towards separate Grimm skulls as they were pierced with a crack. The boy was too involved with the pack in front of him still, his flank completely undefended as he opened up a Beowulf's chest. The Boarbatusk shrieked in triumph as it closed upon its target, then grunted in surprise as her shoulder slammed into its unprotected side and sent it flying straight into the face of an Ursa behind it.

The impromptu pair slammed against the flagstones in a cacophony of wails and shrieks before she descended upon the still recovering Boarbatusk. She kicked it solidly in its underbelly, the pointed ends of her boots tearing through the things hide. It shrieked in surprise and pain as she delivered a second kick, then a third and a fourth. She turned her gaze to its two beady left eyes and pounded her spiked fist into them, removing the glaring orbs with a pop as they clung to the spikes buried within them. She stomped on the things' front left tusk and broke it off, using her foot as a source of leverage.

That darker part of her emerged again, forcing a garish grin on her face as it -she - reveled in the sanguinary dismantling of the monster. With a beastial cry of triumph she braced her hands at the base of the tusk and shoved it up the Boarbatusk's unprotected lower jaw, through its skull, and straight into its brain. All this happened in the span of seven seconds at most, though it seemed like an eternity to her. Combat did that to you.

With a grunt she hefted it and threw the thing's limp corpse off the struggling Ursa below it, her ghastly grin adorning her black-blood speckled face and ivory mask was the first thing it saw. She hefted her foot and poured all her weight and strength into a stomp on the prone Ursa's windpipe, with a snapping of cartilage and a final forced exhalation of breath it collapsed. But her boot continued, crashing against the monster's spine. Again she lifted and again she stomped, over and over, a gleeful laugh forcing itself from her lips. It terrified her, but it also brought her such ecstasy. _Why shouldn't I enjoy it?_ A voice nibbled at the back of her mind, _it's pure evil, after everything they've done to me and humanity I deserve to relish in their torture, don't I?_

The pounding of flagstones tore her mind back to reality. Her foot was no longer pounding any flesh, in fact, she had decapitated the thing so that all she stomped was the pavement. Burning eyes registered bristling black fur in front of her and body instinctiually reacted. One hand shot forth, fingers locked together in a spear of bone as they pierced the pelt. A grunt of surprise spread sickly warm breath across the back of her neck before her leg swiped forward. Sharpened and thick bone met black hide. The bone won. Black ichor spilled over her leg and splattered across the flagstones. The Beowulf, as its tumbling form now revealed it to be, splayed across the pavement from its sudden lack of leg. She finished it with a stomp to the skull.

She looked around, searching for more prey before realizing she couldn't see the other hunters anymore, only black fur and ivory masks. Her head shot from side to side before the truth dawned on her: she was entirely surrounded by Grimm. She raised her fists in a protective stance, waiting for an attack that never came.

The Grimm cast her sidelong glances, but none attacked; they all flowed around her like she was a rock in a river. _Attack me_ , she wanted to scream, _attack me, attack me,_ _ **attack me!**_ She roared and launched herself at the nearest Grimm, a smaller Beowulf. Digging her sharpened gauntlets into its throat as she tore away at the the flesh, she desperately removed one hand and hammered the unyielding gauntlet into its snout again and again. She roared in rage at it, her voice a bellowing and hoarse rasp, screaming incomprehensibly at it in a way only she could understand. _Attack me, attack me, attack me!_ It's skull finally collapsed under the hammer blows and she rounded herself on a new target: a Creep that wasn't facing her. She bellowed in pain and rage and the dark ecstasy that burned within her, throwing the remnants of the Beowulf's skull at the creature in an effort to antagonize it. It didn't respond.

She charged it, her mind repeating the same desperate chorus as her voice and mouth struggled to do the same. She slid past it and swept her feet in a wide arc, she had meant only to knock its legs out from under it, but the razor sharp edges of her greaves and the power of the blow ripped through the tendons, muscle, and bone of the the creatures ankles. It shrieked in pain as it fell helplessly to the ground, but still it made no hostile move towards her; no biting or swiping or roaring characteristic of even injured Grimm, only a blank stare. She hated it. She hated herself.

She grabbed the thing's leg and pulled upward with all her might, pushing off with her feet, she kicked and swiped at the tendons and flesh that connected the Creep's leg to its body, slicing off chunk after chunk. Finally, with a sickening crunch and a victorious cry from herself, it yielded and came loose. Black blood sprayed over her armor as the artery suddenly lost its connection. Her vision was blurred and she could taste salt in her mouth. The Creep cried out in pain but still made no move to attack. The small island of logic in the emotional storm that was her mind told her that it probably couldn't if it wanted to. It was ignored.

She hammered down with the creatures own leg as a club, smashing it against it's face as it died. The world narrowed as she slammed the bleeding stump into its former owner, there was nothing, not even the Creep really; just the raging turmoil in her mind. Her limbs moved unconsciously, without input, still hammering away at where the Creep had last been.

She was dimly aware of the ground shaking underneath her feet and the Grimm parting around her, the sounds of battle ceasing, but her mind refused to register the information; it only cared about its tunnel vision. There wasn't even much coherent thought, simply wave after wave of rage, pain, fear, and sadness.

A mighty trumpeting sound and simultaneous voice broke through the storm of her emotions, shattering her tunnel vision, and letting the world around her flood back in. The broken pieces of the Creep's head were smoking as they began to dissolve, as was the now very broken stump she held. The battle around her had ceased, the Grimm pulling back thirty feet to the fountain from the battered semicircle of hunters that now stood less than ten feet from the door to the medical center. She stood in the no man's land between the two forces, between the light and the dark.

At the head of the roiling mass of Grimm, and directly in front of her, a gargantuan Goliath towered over the plaza. Its tusks were long and scarred, one broken at the tip, the parts of its hide that weren't covered in white plate were coated in their own armor of almost complete scar tissue. Gouges and cracks coated the mask of the Goliath before her, marks from a thousand battles, and a thousand victories. Its eyes were large and burning red as if lit by actual fires, and they glimmered as much from intellect as they did from fury. Another trumpeting from the Goliath and another simultaneous voice, though this time she processed it.

 _New One,_ the voice spoke, ending when the trumpeting did. It took her mind half a second to figure out what was happening: the Goliath was speaking to her, and she could _understand_ it.

The tiny island of logic inside the storm of her mind reeled from the realization, spitting question after question out in a doomed attempt to rectify what was happening with what it thought was possible. But the fact that this was happening at all reignited the tempest of her emotions with the fear that had struck her during the fight, yet it quickly had to contend with other vortexes as her feelings spiraled into collapse. _It's not attacking_ , was the first coherent thought she had.

In a rage she bellowed at the ancient beast before her, a monstrous sound, but she figured if she could understand it, it could understand her. _Attack me!_

The Goliath did not respond. Again she bellowed, snapping the Creep leg over her own and crunching the remains of the Creep skull beneath her boot. _**Attack me!**_ No response. Infuriated, scared, and trembling, she threw the two halves of the leg at the creature's face where they deflected off its mask harmlessly, leaving only black smears behind. Her throat came to life unconsciously, rasping and bellowing at the monster: _**why won't any of you attack me?!**_ She asked, a question she already knew the answer to, but couldn't face. The Goliath's head tilted downwards, its eyes meeting her own.

 _Because you are Grimm, New One,_ the voice sounded over the gruff trumpeting of the beast.

A part of her wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, to shut out the world and sob and curse at the unfairness, the cruelty, of it all. That was not the part of her that took control of her body though. The part that took control was sweating with anger and indignation, it wanted to make something _hurt_ because none of this was fair. She may not be human anymore, but she _certainly_ wasn't Grimm.

Her body went rigid as every muscle flexed simultaneously in rage. Her shoulders heaved as her breaths came out slowly, her fists clenched at her sides, and she locked eyes with the Goliath again. She wanted to kill it, the darkness within her feeding the fires of her rage. She charged. Her roar wasn't one of speech, but one of raw emotion.

Her brain fell back into the comfortable routine of assessment and exploitation. The monster before her was gargantuan, easily above forty feet in height, so logic told her it should be slow. Its hide would be incredibly thick and tough, but still weaker than the plates that adorned its body. Her mind figured that the weakest spot would be behind the knees: hamstring it and it couldn't move, then the hunters behind her could finish it off easily, well, easi _er_. She pushed off from the ground and barreled towards the creature, but it made no move, nor did it speak, it only glared at her, assessing the child that had challenged it. That only infuriated her more, kicking her right leg out to the side she springboarded off its left shin and up towards the opposite knee, reaching her arm out to catch the bone knee plate.

Latching onto the top of the plate she used her newest anchor point as a pivot, letting her momentum swing her around so she was facing the behemoth's unprotected hide. She screamed and slashed at the hide with her bladed forearm, drawing a thin amount of blood. But the beast's hide was thick and, as such, the cut was shallow. She sliced again, drawing more blood, and the behemoth grunted in annoyance and stomped the foot she clung to. The flagstones cracked and the ground shook, but her grip held firm.

She sliced twice more before the thing's left front leg lashed out. She twirled around to the other side of the leg, slicing as she went, before what sounded like the cracking of a whip filled her ears. A force wrapped itself around her torso, pressing her left arm against her body. _The trunk_ , she realized, as she suddenly found herself hurtling across the plaza. Her mind instinctively attempted to use her semblance to redirect her momentum, but nothing came of it. The ground was rushing towards her face, and she just managed to tuck into a ball and roll as her back hit the ground. Her armor softened the blow immensely, and her rolling lessened it even further, but it still hurt. She rolled three times before springing out and taut on the last rotation, leaping to her feet and turning to face the behemoth again. Tiny black globs of blood oozed from the cut she had made, but the creature's stance indicated that it felt no pain when putting all of its weight on the injured leg.

She roared and charged again at the creature, rolling to avoid the spined trunk that whipped towards her before vaulting out of the roll and onto the creature's left knee. She didn't have a plan, not really. Her mind was clouded with darkness and hate, only having enough cognizant thought to work out the base tactics: get to the face, and cause it pain. She clambered up the creature's leg and onto its flank, she dug her pointed gauntlets as deep into its flesh as she could go before leaping up onto its spine to dodge the trunk that came to swat her. She began to sprint along the ridged black flesh before it shifted beneath her feet. The black mountain of muscle rippling under her as it reared upwards at a right angle, her feet suddenly finding themselves with nothing to stand on. She dug her claws into the flesh, clawing for a handhold, but none came. Instead, she raked four shallow cuts down the beast's back, cursing mentally as her fingers reached the end of the flesh.

Something spiked and whip-like slapped against her left side, sending her flying to the right, straight towards the awaiting claws of an Ursa Major. She crossed her forearms in front of her, guarding her body and absorbing most of the raw impact of the horizontal swipe it used to send her skipping across the flagstones and back into no-man's-land.

Her body ached from the blows she had taken, but it was not debilitating, and she would not let it stop her. Her sharp, gauntleted fingers scraped against the flagstones as she shakily pushed herself to her feet, stumbling slightly as she did so. She raised her head to glare at the ancient Goliath, matching its hate filled gaze with one of her own. She sneered and charged again, but was forced to her knees when pain exploded in her ears. She screwed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears to shut out the incredible trumpeting that the creature before her made. The voice in her mind translated, roaring " _ **Enough!**_ " through her skull. The trumpeting ceased and she blinked slowly, the hate that had clouded her mind retreating.

More trumpeting, not nearly as shrill and painful this time, filled her ears. _You are as annoying as you are young, New One._ She rose groggily to her feet glaring at the beast before her. She managed a rasping roar in response: _I'll kill you!_

A glimmer of amusement flickered in the beast's eyes before it grunted and trumpeted again. _No, you will not. You will come with us._ An instant snarl was her response as she bared her teeth at the beast. _I will die first, monster._ It snorted loudly through its trunk. _A tempting offer, but no. You will come with us, or the humans will die._

The snarl vanished from her face, replaced by a look of panic. She turned around and scanned the faces of the surviving Hunters on the ground, the ones lining the rooftop, and a few civilian support staff faces pressed against the window. They were shocked, and it took her a few seconds to understand why. They were shocked because they were witnessing what appeared to be two Grimm conversing. Negotiating, _talking._ She'd never heard of that happening before. She glanced back at the faces behind her, she only recognized three: her professors. All three faces were a study in cautious perplexment. Port gripped his Axe with both hands, looking deceptively calm and disinterested save for the deep furrowing of his eyebrows and mustache. Goodwitch's eyes flicked back and forth between herself and the Goliath, full of intensity; she gripped her riding crop defensively in one hand, tendons perched on the edge of making a move. Oobleck seemed to all the world transfixed by their conversation, but his legs were slightly bent and his muscles taut and ready for combat. She turned back to the monster before her and met its gaze. She growled; _why would you let them live even if I came with you?_ The Grimm's massive ears flourished outwards as it shifted its head. One by one it made eye contact with every Hunter on the ground before letting its baleful gaze rove among the faces on the rooftop. Some flinched, others sneered, but most just looked perplexed, as if not sure how to react to such an event. Slowly, its gaze fell back on her, and it trumpeted and snorted once again. _**I**_ _wouldn't, but it is not my place to make such a decision. I serve. As will you, New One._ She looked back at the faces behind her, sixty or so total combat ready humans of varying skill and size, against them stood a horde of Grimm that stretched endlessly down the city streets, repaving them in ebony fur. _Could they win this? Could they survive?_ All the faces of ex-students and transfers on the roof, _how many would die?_ She didn't know. What she did know was that any who died would die because of her, her pride. Take the offered out and let them all live, or gamble with their lives because she couldn't bear to go with the Grimm.

She knew the right choice, the heroic choice. Just like she knew the right and heroic choices when offered with the fall maidens powers, or facing down the raven-haired woman on the tower, and just like those she wished she could muster the selfishness within her to do what _she_ wanted to. But she could not.

"Miss Nikos," the voice broke through her thoughts that she'd been lost in and forced her back to reality. She was staring at the Professors, the Goliath behind her snorting impatiently as it awaited her decision on the fate of the humans, the friends, around her. She turned to face the source, and found herself looking into the soft face of Doctor Oobleck.

She needed to tell them, had to _,_ but not for their sake. She needed them to know she wasn't a monster leaving with her rescuers, she refused to be. She thrust her right hand outward towards the Doctor, making a writing motion with her left. The man grasped the meaning immediately and retrieved his scroll from within the confines of his forest-green jacket. She took the scroll from his hand and began to type, before holding it out for them to read.

 _The Goliath says that if I leave with them, the horde will not attack. I won't let anyone die for me, I'm the reason they're here, and I can make them leave you all alone._

Oobleck eyed her, "Miss Nikos-"

She growled. She actually growled at him and shook her head. No, this was not up for discussion. She hated it, despised the very notion of accompanying Grimm away from people she knew to be friends. But she'd hate herself more if even one died because she was too proud to leave.

She lifted the scroll again and typed a short message. _Goodbye, and thank you._ She held the scroll out for Oobleck to take again, but he made no move to do so. Instead he lowered his glasses and gave her his best teacher-glare. "I expect you to return Miss Nikos and so much more. After all," a slow smile crept across the man's face, "you _are_ a Huntress."

"And a fine one at that, Barty," Professor Port said, slamming his hand on Oobleck's back with a tremendous thump before leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper. "Who else could trick the Grimm so cleverly?"

"When you get back we are going to have a very serious discussion, Miss Nikos." Goodwitch said as she narrowed her eyes and lowered her glasses.

"That's our Glynda," Port bellowed with a hearty laugh, "ever the disciplinarian." For once the blond didn't make the effort to glare at the mustachioed man with delusions of wit. No, she wouldn't take her eyes off the creature before her.

Pyrrha only nodded curtly in return, she didn't trust herself to not break down if she tried anything more. She let her eyes drift among the faces on the ground, desperate for more images of humanity for her memory to store, no matter how downtrodden and beaten. She saw hate, confusion, indignation, fear, and that was only from the ones whose eyes she could actually meet.

She turned away.

The dull thud of her bone boots colliding against the flagstone echoed through the still night air. Labored breaths and restrained snarls peppered her ears from both sides as the two mortal enemies eyed each other. Each step brought her closer to the Goliath, and each step tore her heart apart. But none of that seemed to matter, not as long as these people survived.

Without realizing it she found herself standing before the Goliath, the thick logs of muscle and bone that formed its legs locked stock still as it observed her. It snorted once and a voice filled her mind: _Follow._ It raised its monstrous legs and slowly turned back towards the streets leading out of the plaza, Grimm parted before it, cutting a swath of empty land through the ebony horde. She made to follow, but stopped. Her legs locked in place of their own accord as her torso twisted back to once more observe the humans behind her. Green-red orbs found blue as Oobleck's mouth spread into a sad smile. Her mind shot back to Velvet and her hand raised unconsciously beside her head, spread wide as she gave a final wave of farewell.

Her view was cut off as an Ursa and its pack shifted in front of her, black fur and ivory spines replaced the kind eyes and sad smile of Doctor Oobleck. All she could see now were the Grimm.

* * *

 **A/N: Annnnnnd cut! That's the end of our first arc people, so glad to have you along for the ride! Fun fact: I was going to include a portion where the Goliath orders all the Grimm to attack the humans anyway, but I just couldn't really make it fit, and the current chapter end I really like.**

 **Man, this week has been** _ **busy**_ **. I wanted to make the battle more drawn out and awesome, and I did end up adding about three paragraphs to the original, but I just didn't have the time for anything more if I wanted to get it out on time which sucks.**

 **A huuuuge thank you to MrWizard70, who has volunteered to help me out with spitballing ideas, plot points, and just general review stuff. He even beta-d this chapter, so give him a huge round of applause!**

 **Um, news, yes, news! Don't worry, just because this is the end of our first arc doesn't mean there won't be an update next week, in fact I've already planned to upload Chapter 10 next Monday/Sunday. WHICH will also be our first non-Pyrrha POV! No hints other than that though, except that according to MrWizard70 it breaks some out feels and is somewhat bittersweet.**

 **That's all for today folks, have a good one and stay safe!**


	10. Morning Coughs

Unwelcome early morning light beat ceaselessly against his eyelids, and the only thing his groggy mind could think of was why on Remnant they got the only hotel room in Mistral that didn't have blackout curtains.

"Jaune," a gentle voice rang from beside him; a voice that was much more welcome than the sunlight, but not as welcome as sleep. He grunted in reply, rolling over to bury his head in the silky surface to his right.

A soft hand began running through his messy, early-morning hair, stroking his scalp with a delicate touch. He moaned contentedly in sleepy pleasure; he could stay like this forever. "It's time to wake up," the voice rang again, closer this time, but still just as gentle. He buried his head deeper in the velvety surface, willing it to hide his eyes from the sunlight and make it night again. A soft chuckle came from above him, and upon hearing it his heart soared with glee. His groggy mind however, still longed for sleep.

"Jaune, if you don't wake up soon I'll have to sick Nora on you," spoke the voice from above him, its smooth tones masking the deviousness of which it spoke. A cold feeling gripped his heart at the prospect of the pint-sized, redheaded, ballistic missile of energy solely focused on rousing his helpless and sleeping form.

"You wouldn't," he spoke, his voice muffled and distorted by the creamy skin it was pressed against and the haze of sleep still clouding his mind. A mischievous chuckle escaped the lips above him and he heard her take a deep breath.

"Oooooh Nooooraa~," his mind panicked and his eyes shot open as the dreaded sound emerged from the heavenly lips above him. His body snapped up in response, his arm gently and firmly clamping down on the source of the sound. He could feel laughter emanating from the mouth underneath his hand, but that was not his main concern. No, his main concern was the ever closer pounding of feet on wood as the demon approached the door to their room. With all the subtlety and grace of a bomb the door was thrown open, the tousled orange mane and manic grin of the energetic warrior in full view as she leaned in through the door.

"Whaddya need, Ruby?" Her words promised help, assistance, with whatever you asked, but her tone and grin promised mischief and chaos. He knew it all too well.

"Nothing, Nora, nothing at all. Ruby just- I mean, we just- we're fine." His smile was taxed and slightly desperate, his arm shaking from the barely contained mirth of the silver-eyed brunette below him. Nora's eyes flicked between the two, scanning for an opening, an opportunity, anything to inflict good-natured chaos upon. His smile grew ever more strained as the ruthless sky-blue eyes of the ginger in the door scanned over the scene before her; he was certain he was going to have a various array of bruises, mental and physical, come the next few minutes before a calm voice resounded from the kitchen and rescued him. "Nora, come help me with the pancakes," Oh thank Dust for Ren.

At the mention of the p-word Nora's eyes went as wide as her favorite dish, her body twitched and her face exploded in a smile that seemed to be as big as her arm. "Coming Ren," she shouted, her voice laced with barely contained excitement as she launched herself out of the doorway and back into the delectably smelling suite kitchen.

Jaune let all his pent up fear from the five second encounter escape in a long breath before he turned slowly to the silver eyes that stared oh-so-innocently up at him. He carefully removed the hand covering Ruby's mouth before placing it on the pillow beside her head. Leaning into it, and down to her as he spoke. "You're cruel," he stated, his voice full of faux-pain as he took his time taking in the sight of the gorgeous woman beneath him. Her red-tipped brown hair was messy and tangled from an especially active night, there was sleep in the corners of her eyes and on the edges of her eyelashes, dried saliva traced a line down her chin from the corner of her mouth from where she drooled, zig-zagging red indentations from the pillow lined the left side of her face, and her breath was a little stale from a night of sleep. He'd never seen anything more beautiful.

The white pillows and sheets around her head bounced the early morning sun off her beautifully pale complexion, so much so that it seemed she shined, radiating light and happiness into his world. Her entrancingly silver eyes were dramatically wide with fake begging, and her mouth was drawn together, her bottom lip jutting out so perfectly that it must've taken years to master. She was giving him the puppy-dog-face, mustering all her cuteness in one resounding, and adorable, attack. He didn't stand a chance.

His face broke out in a wide grin as he leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose ever so softly. Her pout vanished as she emitted a small squeak at the contact, before she pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him passionately. All thoughts of sleep vanished from his mind as the contact consumed him. The kiss lasted half a minute before they were forced to separate for breath; it was times like this where he felt that breathing was incredibly inconvenient.

Their faces were scant centimeters apart, foreheads resting against each other, eyes closed as each relished in the feeling of intimacy the other's presence, physical and emotional, provided.

"Ren's making pancakes, you know, in case you didn't hear," he spoke. His eyes still closed and his body unmoved, he didn't want this to end.

"How could I have not heard that, Jaune?" He could hear the smile in her voice, and that in turn crafted his own. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

"Well, there was that one time when you were cleaning Crescent Rose that you tuned out everything else on Remnant." His smile morphed into a smirk as he made renewed eye contact with the silver orbs below him. "And by 'that one time' I mean 'whenever you clean Crescent Rose.'"

The most minute of blushes spread across her face. "I regret nothing!" She shouted, her voice rising in pitch as her arms rocketed taut and straight over her head.

A small chuckle found its way out his mouth as he observed her triumphant form. He sighed as he rolled over onto his back next to her. But not a sigh of resignation or sadness, this was a sigh of happiness, a sigh of joy, a sigh of a man who, at this moment, could not think of a better place to be.

"Whatever you say, oh Leader Mine," he said, the smile on his lips and happiness in his tone indicative of his mirth.

"Exactly," she exclaimed, rolling over on her side so she was now looking him in the eyes again, "and as your leader I command you to cuddle me!"

A fake gasp of horror. "No, anything but that!"

Tiny arms with muscles like steel cable wrapped around him at the speed of sound, without his aura he'd almost certainly have a bruise. "Too late," she responded as rose petals drifted softly onto his chest, "it's an order, soldier!" He could feel her face nestle against his chest, before it suddenly shifted and he found himself looking into those captivating silver eyes again.

"And do you want to know what happens to soldiers who don't follow my orders?" She asked, her voice suddenly husky and low. He blushed a deep scarlet like the tips of her hair. "I punish them," she answered, fingers dancing along his chest, twirling the rose petals that lay there. "Do you want to be punished, Private Arc?" His whole face was beet red, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he struggled to find his voice.

Mount Ruby erupted in a torrent of unrestrained giggling below him at the sight of his predicament. Despite his best efforts his face still remained red, his throat locked in a losing battle trying to remember how to speak. In a last ditch effort he wrapped his arms around the shaking brunette beneath him and pulled her closer to him, trying to press her face into his chest unsuccessfully.

Eventually the giggles faded and his blush receded, and the two let the comfortable silence that only partners share reign as they each held the other. Minutes ticked by and the smell from the kitchen grew ever more enticing, but the breaths from Ruby grew ever more slow and steady. He wasn't exactly sure when, but at some point the brunette had fallen asleep, her face buried between his chest and the wrinkled sheets. She kicked softly in her sleep, drool running down the edges of her mouth and onto his chest. He stared at her, just taking in the sight of the breathtaking woman for the second time this morning.

Delicate footfalls and a soft knock tore him away from the sight of his sleeping lover and to the still open doorway of their room. There stood Ren, in his hands were two plates of pancakes, one each. The ones on the left were plain, while the ones on the right were speckled with melted chocolate chips and topped with sliced strawberries. Ever so gently Jaune raised a single finger to his mouth before pointing down at Ruby's slumbering form. Ren nodded once in understanding before placing the two plates on the top of the dresser closest to the door, and, just as quietly, left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

With a soft sigh Ren made his way back to his and Nora's room. She insisted on eating in there this morning, though why he wasn't exactly sure. He knew it would be ridiculous though, it was Nora after all. Still, he couldn't help but let a small smile grow on his face at the prospect of breakfast in bed with his partner, or anything with his partner really.

With a perfectly calculated amount of force, Ren twisted the knob and opened the door to his and Nora's room. He stopped dead in his tracks.

There, on their bed, was Nora. She lay on her side facing the door, head propped up by her left arm while the right draped seductively across her hips. She wore a smirk and nothing else; her body completely bare save for one thing. There, perfectly covering the spot between her thighs, was a plate piled high with pancakes coated in syrup.

"Hello there, Renny," she practically purred, her eyebrows wiggling so much as to almost leap off her face. "Welcome to breakfast."

* * *

"Hcccccceeellooch." A frustrated sigh. That hardly sounded like "hello" at all. She took a deep breath, her vocal chords itching in agitation as she did so. "Hccccceeeeeechllloks." A roar begging to be released tugged at the back of her throat, but she would not loose it. She _would_ get this. She _would_ speak.

Another deep breath.

"Hcccc-,"she doubled over as her the agitation in her vocal cords grew to an unbearable scratch. She could do nothing but hack and cough as the roughness of her throat occupied her body and mind. Her eyes were wrenched shut, yet still excess water dripped down her mask from their corners. By the end of the coughing fit she found herself on all fours on the ground, spittle slowly drifting down from her lips.

Dust _dammit_ , it just wasn't fair. She slammed her fist hard into the ground, leaving dented earth and a somewhat placated psyche behind. She didn't know exactly how much the change had affected her vocal chords, only that they seemed to itch and scratch incredibly whenever she attempted to speak coherently. She could roar and rage all she wanted, but the second she tried to speak like a human her vocal chords called it quits.

That wasn't to say she hadn't made any progress, as minute as it was. Her voice listened to her, and she had managed to somewhat bridge the divide between her brain's commands, the sound her chords made, and the way her mouth shaped them. Still a long way from being able to hold a conversation, but progress nonetheless.

Two weeks had passed since she departed Vale and stepped into the shadow of a true monstrosity. At first the pack had consisted of many an ancient Grimm: Nevermore, Ursa, Deathstalker, Taijitu, Goliaths, all immensely old and powerful. And incredibly numerous given how rare ancient Grimm were. That pack had dwindled in power but grown in number since her departure. One by one, the Elder Grimm split off, going their own ways and leading massive war parties of their own species, and, as they left, weaker Grimm would fill in the ranks. Currently she travelled with the Ancient Goliath, an Ancient Deathstalker where originally there had been six, two Elder Alpha Beowulfs, an Ancient Ursa Major, and about fifty or so young Grimm, mostly Beowulfs and Ursa with a few creeps here and there.

Yet, even among that ancient and hateful pack, the Goliath she had spoken with remained supreme; the undisputed leader in every way. She'd be lying if she said it wasn't intriguing, the potential to talk to Grimm. She had an opportunity that no human being had ever had, or may ever have again. The opportunity to learn about the creatures, understand them, and then, ideally, use that information for their total annihilation.

But, at the same time, the human part of her found it abhorrent in every way: to make any effort of communication or understanding on her part was traitorous, yet it was more than that. The part that still clung to the truth of her being Pyrrha Nikos felt threatened by any effort to become more like them than she already was, and doing something as simultaneously taboo and unheard of as holding a conversation with one seemed like it only drove her further away from who she was, and down an ever darkening path. At what point did the ends cease to outweigh the means? Would she gain vital information to save humanity, or merely lose herself in the darkness and become the monster her physical form already said she was?

The choice should've been obvious, instantaneous, the lives of the many outweighed that of her own. And yet she still found herself hesitating. Why? _Because you're a coward._ She grit her teeth and clenched her fists at the sound of the hated voice in her head. She wasn't a coward. Was she?

The sudden ceasing of the constant shaking of the earth that had been her marching tune for the past two weeks roused her from her thoughts. She looked up to find the Goliath, along with the rest of the pack, had stopped dead in its black tracks. She was on the cusp of asking what exactly caused them all to stop when she heard it: a dull and familiar roar on the edge of her hearing. Her head shot up to the cloudy sky, eyes scanning the puffy white monstrosities for the source of the sound, mimicking the fifty other blood red pairs in her motions.

 _There._ A single glimmering dot burst from the clouds, followed by the instinctual growls of the mindless younger Grimm. The ancient ones remained stock still, the only indication that they were alive being the steady rising and falling of their chests. Their eyes remained locked on the cloud, ignoring the bullhead that had emerged. She soon understood why.

Like bees bursting from a hive the cloud exploded with glistening silver dots and the air filled with the deep vibrations of roaring dust engines.

She was shocked. She didn't think she'd seen this many small ships before, there had to be at least fifty, all flying in formation. They flew west, straight over the angry horde below them and back towards Vale.

Her head tracked them as they flew above, hands clutching her ears in an effort to protect them from the vicious vibrations. Of the fifty or so ships, about fifteen seemed to be escorts, their massive rotary cannons and missiles glinting menacingly in the sunlight; the rest were all transport Bullheads. The young Grimm around her were berserk, gauging the ground with their claws, the Beowulves attempting to leap up and somehow claw the transports far above them in a vain effort to cause damage. They growled and howled, claws and teeth gnashing at the wind as the roars of the engines drowned them out. But the elders were different. Not one of them made a move; they all stood still save for the rotation of their heads that tracked the airships' progress with unblinking resolve until they vanished again into the clouds.

The Goliath snorted, the grass beneath its trunk flattened for a second as so much air pressed so suddenly against it. _They send reinforcements to the Forest City._ A small flicker of relief sparked in her mind before a brief trumpeting coupled with a voice drew her attention. _Take the surrounding Minds and Mindless and go back._ The Goliath spoke, black skin rippling as the enormous muscles in its neck shifted its head towards the larger of the two Ancient Deathstalkers. _She does not wish them to reclaim it yet. I will stay with the New One._

The Deathstalker's mouth foamed, it's pincers snapping together excitedly as it turned and scuttled back down the path from whence they had come. All the ancient Grimm followed immediately, followed by the "Mindless" younger ones, defaulting to the command of their more powerful leaders. The roiling and almost solid mass of black fur and muscle that was the pack tore back through the trees before disappearing into the foliage.

It was just her and the Goliath now.

She forced her eyes away from the trail of uprooted trees and destroyed dirt and back to the Goliath above her.

 _Where are we going?_

The Goliath trudged onwards, not turning to face her as it spoke. _You are going to the Mountain Island to the East, I am escorting you to the ocean._

The Mountain Island? Her mind mulled over the Goliath's "words" before it registered and she stopped.

The Mountain Island to the East. Mistral. She was going home.

* * *

 **A/N: Surprise Lancaster! For those wondering, yes this was always going to happen, and no Ruby and Jaune have not done the do. You can sleep in the same bed as someone without banging, calm down. What does this mean for Pyrrha? Well, honestly not much has changed from her original plan. The only difference is that now he's actually with someone (which really isn't a new thing to her in all honesty). She never planned on "getting back" with him as she is now, so that part remains unchanged, maybe if she finds a cure or something, who knows? I do.**

 **Anyway, about the evolution of Jaune and Ruby's relationship: I felt this was honestly quite natural, shared grief like this leads to the development of very close bonds that, over the course of a year, could grow romantic. It may seem sudden, but one of the main themes of Pyrrha's character and subsequent demise was that you should go out there and** ** _do it right now_** **because tomorrow, especially as a Hunter, is never** ** _ever_** **guaranteed. Act while you're alive and craft happy memories for your death and all that.**

 **Anyway, the latter part of this chapter is probably pretty crap in all honesty; I've been incredibly busy so I haven't had time to proofread it carefully, let alone revise it and stuff. I'll try and get around to that later this week, apologies to all of you that have to read through my word vomit, but I really wanted to get this chapter out today and I simply wouldn't have been able to if I'd held onto it for any longer.**

 **Those of you who read 'A Lazy Morning' might've noticed that this is the same text, and that is not by accident. That entry was always meant to be a brief part of Chapter 10, and really I just wanted to enter something and I had that lying around so I was like 'what the hell, why not.'**

 **Once again a big thanks to MrWizard70 for brainstorming/beta-ing/some mix of the two!**

 **Have a good one, guys!**


	11. A Sense of Discovery

**A/N: Don't usually do pre-chapter author's comments, but this is special case.**

 **About last chapter...I knew it would be, ah, controversial let's say. That said, I got some good feedback for it, and, as such, I will probably be giving the Lancaster part of Ch. 10 a rewrite, though in what way I'm unsure.**

 **Do let me know if you guys do** _ **not**_ **or** _ **do**_ **want that, either way is fine, and I want your honest feedback, all is appreciated!**

* * *

The diameter of the Goliath's footsteps was just as long as the length of one fingertip to the other when her arms were stretched out horizontally. A grand total of five feet and two inches. She'd measured it many times, not much else to do on the slog to the ocean.

She'd yet to work up the courage to actually talk to the Goliath, part of her hated herself for that, the other was immensely relieved. The thing didn't seem eager to talk to her either, but she got the feeling that was more because it was a Grimm and therefore unused to conversation than anything else. She wasn't sure how far away she was from the ocean, but something told her she wasn't terribly far. The mountains that Vale was nestled in had given way to gentle hills and plains. The ground had begun to flatten out, the air became more humid, mist became more frequent, and she had even seen two seagulls flying above her earlier that day.

She'd guess another week or two of walking and she'd be there. But then what? How was she supposed to cross the Vytal Channel? She couldn't wave down a fisherman or ferry and ask for a ride, one she couldn't speak, and, well, two she looked like a monster. No sane human would welcome her onto their ship, even if she had a million lien on her.

Her mind emptied as she continued to trudge along behind the massive Goliath, avoiding the foot deep footprints it made every time it stepped out of the sheer inconvenience of walking in them. Absentmindedly, she began to study the monster that was her escort.

Not a single inch of its skin was without a scar, be it faded or fresh, every part of its hide that wasn't under plate was scar tissue. Its tusks were a brilliant white that bounced the sun's rays in every direction, they were scarred as well, the left one was even chipped, but that didn't diminish their remarkable hue. Every plate that coated the Grimm's body was decorated with a deep crimson trim that flowed beautifully along as if it had a mind of its own. The thing's ears were almost as large as its head, they were scratched and gouged, easily one of the most heavily scarred parts of its body. Its tail was coated in bone barbs half a foot long each, with it ending in a wicked point at the bottom. Its trunk was much the same, but the front of it was coated with articulated bone plates about three inches thick; it draped down from forty feet up at the base of its skull, and all the way to the ground.

She spoke without thinking.

 _How old are you?_ Her rasping ground to a halt when she realized that sound had escaped her mouth. Her feet stopped dead, inches from another massive footprint of the Goliath. The ground shook as the giant thing lumbered on.

 _In human terms?_ She grunted affirmingly at the the footprint before her, body locked in place.

 _I do not know, but I can tell you how many humans I've killed._ She swallowed nervously and clinched her fists in anger all in one motion at the words.

 _How many?_

The thing continued forward, but like the way one can hear if someone is smiling when they talk, she understood that the Goliath was happy when it spoke of the lives it stole. _Well over a thousand Warriors._ Her gauntleted fingers bit into the skin of her palm. _About ten thousand Pathetics. Five or six hundred of those were from the fall of the Forest City._ She growled unconsciously at its words, her lips pulled back in a snarl she didn't know she was wearing.

The Goliath before her stopped, its head turning slowly to meet her gaze. _And that is after I became a Mind, who knows how many I killed in the years I was still Mindless._ If Grimm could chuckle then this one was definitely doing so. _Does that anger you, New One?_

She growled at it. Her head raising to stare balefully into the red depths of the Goliath's own pair. It trumpeted again, their gazes never leaving each other. _It should not. Humans are prey, and prey are made to be killed._

A flare of… _something_ in her mind tore her eyes away from the Goliath and towards her left. She didn't know what it was, but it drew focus her towards it. It was like the smell of a fresh baked raspberry pie, or a grand and flowing piece of music, she wanted to be closer to it. _Needed_ to be. But it was neither of those things, it was a sense she'd never felt before, an awareness she'd never had, and it excited her. If she had looked up she would've noticed the Goliath's focus snap briefly to the same direction before locking onto her form, studying her every movement.

The sense was tantalizing, enthralling even, and, without realizing it, she began to sprint towards the source. Branches snapped and leaves crunched as she crashed through the underbrush, crushing grass and bushes underfoot as she drew ever closer to the source. It was _so close_. She needed to know what it was, needed to see it; her mind rationalized it as a necessary exploration of a new sense, but she was single-minded and animalistic in her instinctual pursuit.

She must've been running for thirty minutes, and all the while the sense had been growing smaller yet, somehow, more intense, more concentrated. She was almost there, almost close enough to see what was teasing her like this when she heard it. A wail. A wail made of pure misery, the embodiment of loss. It tore through the chirping of the birds and the rustle of the wind with abandon, quieting all as its misery overwhelmed the forest around it.

At the same time the sense skyrocketed in its intensity, but then collapsed just as fast as a gunshot silenced the wail. Her feet had stopped, her heart beating calmly as her chest rose and fell steadily. Someone had died. She was sure of it. But who, and why? Snapping herself out of her stupor, she pumped her legs again and barreled through the trees until she was practically on top of the sense. Her footsteps slowed to a stop and she dropped to a crouch, green and red orbs glistening through a break in the shrub that hid her form.

The scene before her was grizzly to say the least, and suddenly the sense, well, made sense. It was negativity that she was drawn to, and the sight before her positively oozed it in waves. A ruined caravan stretched before her on an ancient and overgrown road. Greenery sprouted from the cracks between the worn paving stones, and the tree canopy encircled it from above, forming a tunnel of green and brown punctuated by soft beams of light that sprinkled through the leaves. It would've been beautiful, but the gallons of blood that coated the road ruined the view.

Bodies lay strewn and broken across the road, clutching their intestines or loved ones or both as their lifeblood spread across the beige stone. Splintered wagons formed a line of destruction for five-hundred feet in both directions. Some spewed bodies where the occupants were cut down as they tried to escape, others held boxes and crates; some cracked and leaking while others held firm. Her face moved from one victim to the next, her eyes searching for any sign of life. She ignored the ones who were missing chunks of their skulls, trying to quiet the bile that rose in her throat as she did. Fires raged down the end of the left side of the caravan, and the bodies there were charred and blackened, contrasting greatly with the whiteness of their teeth and bones that she could see through the melted flesh.

Most of the victims seemed to have been killed by bullets or swords, but there were frozen families or smoking corpses here and there that indicated the use of dust.

The smell was the worst part: the scent of burnt popcorn from the charred flesh, coppery and metallic from blood, and the rancid, sewer like smell of punctured bowels that leaked their contents across the flagstones. Vomit and shit and blood and burnt popcorn combined with the smell of burnt ozone and dust from the weapons. It was sickening, but that small part, that darkness within her, felt at ease, even _comforted_ , by the stench.

She wasn't sure if she should be more disgusted with the scene before her or with herself.

Men and women in white uniforms and Grimm masks roamed through the wreckage. Twenty or so were fighting the fires that raged in the back of the caravan, their shouts punctuated by small explosions of dust as the fire ignited containers. Ten roamed up and down the column firing single shots into the skulls of those whose corpses looked "too whole." Fifteen or so others were scavenging through the carts, off loading any boxes that contained dust and carrying them to a point opposite of the tree line she hid in where a small pyramid of crates had begun to form.

The sound of laughter from the front of the column drew her attention, the echoing happiness at such a contrast with the slaughter before her. As carefully as she could, she moved through the treeline and towards the front of the column.

There, five men and five women, all in the same uniform minus the masks, were playing a game. At the very forefront of the column, on the bench of a wrecked wagon lay a human skull, all the flesh had been boiled off, leaving it as white as the plates of her armor. Six of the ten, three women and three men, took turns lobbing shell casings and rocks at the skull in an effort to net them inside. So far none had succeeded. The other four lay off to the right, chatting and chuckling at hushed jokes around a small fire.

"This is bullshit, Amber," a man with a tabby tail shouted as his shell clanked off the upper jaw of the skull and onto the road below. "You have to have rigged this somehow."

"You're just pissy because you can't get it in," a woman with golden dog ears sticking out from her hood retorted. "But what else is new?"

Another shell casing clanked against the skull, this one off the eye socket. Simultaneously, a groan sounded from a woman with three inch canines protruding from the top of her mouth. "I'm wiff Tuna on thif one," she muttered, arms crossed on her chest as she huffed in faux indignation. "You've cheated us all."

"Maybe we do need a bigger one," a large man coated in coarse black hair stated, his voice a deep bass.

"Fine then," Amber sighed, throwing her arms up in resignation towards the sky. "Use your big-ass sword to go grab a bigger head, Dust knows you need it. But I'm not boiling the skin off this one; you get it, you clean it." She pointed a single finger at the much larger man, before stomping over to the skull in mock fury. She picked it up with a delicate touch, pulling it into her chest as she stroked the top. "Don't worry, baby, Momma still loves you." Two others laughed jovially at her antics before the group split up.

Bear Man drew a massive cleaver from his hip as he made a steady pace towards the bodies scattered on the road, scanning their heads and occasionally stopping to examine one. "Tuna" and Teeth moved towards Amber the Skull-Stroker and sat down beside her, the group chatting amicably with one another; Amber even used the skull as puppet, having whole conversations with the thing. The other two moved to the quiet group of four sitting on the side of the road, grunting and sighing as they sat down and rested their legs.

It was bizarre. Every aspect of this scene was utterly and totally bizarre. Pyrrha was full of equal parts rage, disgust, and confusion at the group's actions. How could anyone be so callous, so detached as to use a recent victim's skull as a bucket for a game? How could they have slaughtered all these people and used their bodies for entertainment? And how could they act so...so _casual_ about it?! The more she watched them laugh and joke the more rage began to build inside her body, twisting her stomach and thoughts with darkness. _Kill them. Slaughter them. Kill them all._

A beast in her mind clawed at a cage in fury, desperate to be let out and devastate. She was losing herself in her own rage when she heard a sound. A heavy and meaty _thwack_ followed by the clang of metal on stone indicated that Bear Man had found his head. But what followed was unexpected. A soft shriek and the pitter patter of tiny footsteps combined with a despair ridden shout of "Daddy!"

Her eyes, and every pair in the group before her, snapped over to Bear Man. A little girl in torn and stained clothes had collapsed onto the recently beheaded corpse of Bear Man's target. Her eyes were wild and manic, her black, almost sack-like dress was torn and stained with blood, her hair was a deep brown that came down a foot to her tiny waist, and on the top were tiny, brown dog ears tipped with white fur. Her small hands roved desperately over the bleeding stump of her father's neck, trying the staunch the endless stream of lukewarm blood.

Bear Man was the first to recover, snatching the girl up by the scruff of her neck and holding her six feet off the ground and eye to eye as he spoke. "That was your daddy, huh?" The girl waited five seconds, body trembling before she nodded faintly. The man gave a grunt before carrying her back to the now standing group. He dropped the girl roughly on the paving stones, eyeing the rest of the group as he did.

"Her dad was a _human._ " His words were venom, and the girl flinched in response, tiny brown ears laying flat on her head as she attempted to make herself continually smaller.

"That doesn't mean _she's_ a human though," one of the separate four spoke up, this man with short rams horns curling out of his hood. "Look at her ears."

"She's a half-breed. She's not one of us." Teeth spoke up, glaring at Ram. He glared back.

Surprisingly, Amber was the one to mediate the disagreement, turning on Teeth and Bear as she spoke, "She's got ears so she has a right to choose." She turned her head from her perch atop the wagon bench, facing the trembling girl in black. "We're the White Fang," she spoke, the pride dripping from her voice at odds with the scene that surrounded her and the girl that had suffered. "We fight for a better tomorrow for _all_ Faunus, even half-breeds. Do you want to fight with us, little one? Do you want a new family?" Her voice was soft now, gentle in its tone despite the skull in her hands.

At the word "family" the girl's trembling ceased, her eyes hardened and she straightened her back. She stared Amber down with fury alight in her tiny eyes. "You're _monsters._ " Her voice was scratchy and cracking from crying, but her tone was absolute and without fear.

Amber's eyes hardened and she jumped off her perch on the wagon, drawing a utility knife from her belt as she did. " _Fine_. You want to act like a human," she said, flipping the knife forward in her hand and yanking the girl towards her. "You might as well look the part." She pressed her knife to the base of the girl's left Faunus ear and cut in.

The girl's scream of pain was the last straw for Pyrrha's restraint. The girl was right, these people were monsters, and it was her job as a huntress to _kill_ monsters.

Amber's back was ten feet away from her and facing Pyrrha; without thinking she lunged, the screams of the girl masking her heavy footfalls. Before she knew it she was directly behind Amber. She picked her up by the ears - _why shouldn't I kill her-_ bone gauntlets crushing the delicate skin - _it's what she deserves_. With a disturbingly satisfying crunch of bone and flesh, Pyrrha's left hand broke through the front of Amber's chest, spraying the ground before them with gore as she speared the woman's lung. She twisted her arm inside the woman, disturbed by the hint of pleasure that blossomed within her at the sound, before pulling upwards with all her might, using her bladed forearm to slice through bone, sinew, and muscle. A wet crunch followed by an eruption of blood heralded the shredding of Amber's left side as Pyrrha's arm tore free. The woman fell to the ground, very much dead. But Pyrrha wasn't done yet.

She brought all her weight down on the woman's skull in a vicious stomp, grunting as she did. Brain matter and bits of skull exploded like shrapnel as the woman's head popped like a grape under the immense pressure.

Pyrrha was furious, she was enraged, every fiber of her body was alight with the fire of animal bloodlust of the kind she'd never felt before. She was vengeance, and she was _terrified_. But she didn't stop.

The monsters' eyes were wide in fear and shock, some faces even stained with the blood of the woman they'd just then talking to. The skull on the bench seemed to smile in anticipation of its vengeance.

Pyrrha saw red, hot blood dripped down her mask and onto her chest, but that was not the source. Her awareness dimmed as the rage took her mind, and, with a roar embodying every shred of fury she felt, she charged them.

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, Chapter Eleven. This one probably went through more rewrites than any other chapter released so far (only beat by Chapter 12 in fact). A part of me wanted to go all out and super dark and shit, but at the same time, that would be rushing the character (Thanks to MrWizard70 for that feedback). So, I ended up with this, still not super satisfied with it, but I needed to get it out today and just didn't have any extra time.**

 **Funnily enough, the skull game scene was inspired by a scene in** _With the Old Breed: On Peleilu and Okinawa_. **A US marine's memoir of the Pacific Front, very good read if I do say so myself. Anyway, there's a scene where the author's squad is using a Japanese skull with the flesh boiled off as a sort of bowl for tossing rocks in. The author is both simultaneously appalled at the callousness, yet also...used to it I guess you could say. It plays a part in the author's realization of how** _ **numb**_ **war like that will make you, how detached you get from the world, how normal death becomes when most of what you do is kill or watch people you know die around you.**

 **The White Fang v Humanity conflict** _ **outlook**_ **I'm imagining is much like the Pacific Front, absolutely** _ **chalk full**_ **of racism on both sides, and no shortage of war crimes either. Though, of course, the Fang, as far as we know, is still a guerilla terrorist faction, not a full fledged Imperial Nation State with an entire society focused on the war effort, so the conflict itself will be very different.**

 **That's all for today folk, have a good one!**


	12. Through the Eyes of a Child

Despite her tunnel vision Pyrrha's tactical mind was still present. Part of the benefit of everyday training. Her mind told her the biggest threat would be Bear Man and his already drawn cleaver, so he was her next target.

She launched herself at him with wild eyes and a vicious snarl that she was only dimly aware of. She brought her right hand across in a horizontal swipe, her claws scraping through the flesh of his neck and severing his jugular. Blood spewed forth like a fountain from his neck as he took a single choking breath. Before he could finish it, she brought her straightened and bloodstained left hand up through his lower jaw and straight towards his brain. The base of his skull broke with little resistance and her sharpened hand dug into brain matter before ripping outwards again. It had taken her two seconds to dispatch him.

Her body moved on instincts honed by years of combat, slashing her bladed forearm left and directly into the chest of another of the monsters. A ragged cough sprayed blood across her left arm as she brought it up into a vicious uppercut directly behind his chin. Already crimson spikes collided with bone as both jaw and teeth shattered and the man fell limply to the ground. A piercing shriek tore her attention to Teeth. She was staring at the mangled mess that used to be Amber and wailing at the top of her lungs. She imagined the families around them had much the same reaction when they saw the heads and chests of their loved ones explode as bullets tore through them.

Snarling, she chopped with her right hand into the throat of Teeth. Her windpipe collapsed from the pressure and the woman fell to her knees, clawing at the sudden, and now permanent, lack of oxygen. It was around this time that the other monsters seemed to get over their shock and react. Two of the silent ones, including Ram, turned and sprinted to where their guns lay by their old spot. Another ran off towards the back of the caravan, screaming and shouting as she did. The other three bellowed at her in hatred with tear filled eyes and cracking throats. One came from directly in front of her, his leg almost buffeting over the dying form of Teeth, while the other two ran at her from her left. All had small knives gripped in their hands.

She raised her left leg and brought her heel to bear on the man in front of her's face; he raised his arm to block but the sheer weight of the limb and power behind the blow shattered his bone. He screamed once before the sharpened spike on her heel dug into his temple. Her leg's momentum continued and she brought the man's skull to the hard embrace of the road, crushing it between the stone and her heel. Simultaneously, she brought her left arm up, twisting the raised arm of the man who had been about to strike, and used her leverage to yank the man in front of her's body before her, just in time for his ally's knife to plunge deep into his chest. The woman's eyes widened as the beginning's of a scream began to tear from his lips. It ended with a crack as Pyrrha snapped his neck.

Pyrrha shoved the corpse towards the woman, setting her off balance as she attempted to catch the literal dead weight thrust towards her. The sounds of guns cocking and being raised from further behind the shocked and off balance woman indicated that Ram and his friend were ready to fire. She ducked behind the still off balance woman as Ram and his friend unleashed dust propelled lead at where her form used to be. She didn't hear the bullets as much as she felt them rip by her, displaced air angrily shoving its way into her face. She was confident that her armor could shrug off rounds of this caliber, but if at all possible she would like to avoid getting shot rather than survive it.

She pushed herself into the woman, causing the air from her lungs to burst outwards in an explosive breath as her shoulder caught her square in the back. She charged the gunners, using the still living woman as a human shield as she did so. She heard the firing stop as the two realized what she was doing, and she heard them desperately try figure a way around it as she drew ever closer. They didn't.

With one hand she shoved the ex-shield straight into the gunner on Ram's right, hearing two misfires as the woman panicked and forgot where her trigger finger was. Ram would've had a clear shot at her had she not swiped with her left arm, knocking the firearm aside as rounds barked uselessly into the air. In the same motion she brought her armored crown down in a crushing headbutt, the spikes on it making their uses on non-aura'd foes apparent as multiple tiny holes the size of nails appeared in the man's forehead. She heard him gasp before she brought her right arm up to his armpit and severed the artery there. He would bleed to death in a minute.

Content with Ram's imminent death, she turned her body and attention towards the two struggling women on the ground. The ex-shield was clutching a hole in her leg and hyperventilating. She must be in shock. The other was just beginning to get her feet under her and point the gun in her general direction before Pyrrha was on top of her again. She brought all her weight down in an armored stomp on the woman's right arm that held the gun, crushing it between her foot and the ground. Her other foot came up in a vicious kick, the spiked toe of her boot ramming itself under her jaw and into the base of her skull, cutting off the woman's scream before it began.

Her head snapped to the sound of ragged breathing coming from her right. The woman was clutching her leg as blood oozed from the pool that had formed in the hole. Her whole form was trembling like a dead autumn leaf in the wind, her eyes were wide and tremendously dilated as they stared unblinkingly at her gore covered face. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, and Pyrrha thought she could smell piss emanating from the woman, though it could also be from one of the corpses nearby. She removed her boot from the other woman's head with a wet _schlunk_ , not bothering to shake off the bits of bone and the coating of blood that clung to it. She took two deliberate steps towards the woman, her crimson-stained ivory form towering over the cowering figure below.

"Please…" She begged. That one word caught all of her attention, and for a millisecond the rage behind her eyes died and her sanity gasped for air as it resurfaced. But something behind the woman caught her eye: it was the the form of a woman clutching a small child to her chest. Both of them were dead. Where the woman's head had been only splattered bits of bone and the jutting of her spine into the chilly air remained. The boy's chest might as well have no longer existed, his organs and muscles were mincemeat.

These _monsters_ did this _._ Her whole body went rigid with renewed rage as the darkness thrashed and roared in the vortex of her mind, and, ever so slowly, she turned her head back to the injured woman before her. She didn't even _understand_ , did she? She _didn't even know._ How many of these families had uttered that same word? And how many were shown that kindness?

None.

 _Monsters, all of them_.

Her arm thrust forward, hand grabbing the woman's face, claws pricking the skin of her cheeks as she turned the woman's head towards the two bodies. _Make her understand_ , a voice whispered in her mind, _make her_ feel _the pain they did_.

"I-I don't-" she was cut off by a snarl from Pyrrha. She raised her other arm and pointed with her gauntleted finger at the corpses until she knew what Pyrrha was indicating. Then, with a growl and a flick of her wrist, she pointed back at the injured woman before her. She may not be able to speak, but she hoped the message would be clear enough. Based off the pathetic stammering and stuttering sounds the woman made she figured it had gotten the point across.

"I-I didn't, I-they were," a choked and garbled cough. "I-I didn't kill _them_."

If Pyrrha could still raise her eyebrow, she would. She gestured at the carnage around her with a sweep of her arm, before bringing it back in a sharp point that dug into the woman's sternum. She _still_ didn't understand.

Pyrrha opened her mouth to speak. If this was the only way she could make the woman understand then by Dust she'd _do it_. She wanted this demon to realize what she was.

Dry rasps and growls became ever more apparent as words as she strained her vocal chords. The woman's eyes were almost all pupil now they were so dilated.

"Moooon _ssstttt_ eeee _r_ ," the 'r' morphed into a growl as her mouth closed.

The woman's eyes moved nonstop across the graveyard, taking in every detail before coming back to Pyrrha's own burning emerald and crimson orbs. Her mouth moved wordlessly as she struggled to find a rebuke. She didn't.

 _Good._ She wanted her to realize what she was, and be haunted by it for the rest of her life.

With a satisfied grunt, Pyrrha let go of the woman's face and gripped her by her collar. She stood to her full height, raising the woman off the ground as she did. The woman's left foot kicked desperately for the ground, her right merely hung limply, dripping blood from the wound on her thigh.

 _Monsters deserve no mercy,_ the voice whispered.

Pyrrha placed her bladed right forearm against the neck of the woman. She couldn't feel the flesh give way and the slow trickle of blood that indicated broken skin, not when it was on her armor. But she could see it. The rage within her glowed, and she was afraid she smiled, but she wasn't sure.

"There!" A panicked shout followed by the cocking of guns caused her head to snap to the left, back to the direction of the ruined caravan. About thirty or so monsters stood facing her, dust rifles pressed against their shoulders and levelled at her chest. Their masks obscured their eyes, but she could tell by their ultra rigid posture and twitching muscles that she unsettled them. For some strange reason there was no fear at all in Pyrrha's chest, instead it was an odd mix of contentment and hatred that simmered in her mind, clogging it with fog.

At the center of the monster's formation was one of the wrecked carts, and on top of it stood a boy. Not a man, but a boy. He was lithe and stood two feet shorter than her, tiny rat ears poked out of the top of his hood, and before him he gripped a steel scimitar, the blade shaking as his arms did. He had peach fuzz growing around his lips and chin, and a scar ran from his wrist to his elbow. His mask held a single red diamond between the eyes, perhaps an indicator of his rank as none of the other Faunus had them. He was green. And not in the color way, but in the fresh way, the rookie way. This would be his first mission, and she supposed that made sense. Raiding a slow moving caravan full of mostly civilian families with only a small amount of dust and supplies was hardly important, and barely anything could go wrong.

Except it did, _she_ did.

Nervous swallowing, the clenching and unclenching of plastic and steel, and the unsteady and shallow breaths of the woman she held were the only sounds on the road.

"Put Gelba down." She cocked her head in surprise at the boy, he was still trembling tremendously, but his voice, save for a single crack, was quite steady. There was some courage in him.

She shifted her attention back to the woman she held aloft. She didn't bother to beg this time, maybe she knew she deserved death, or maybe the blade against her throat made it too difficult to talk. She watched the blood trickle down her plate in tiny rivulets and drip off her elbow, her crimson trim really was almost the exact same shade as blood.

A cough from the boy. "Put Gelba _down._ " He was getting more nervous now, that much was obvious by the slight raise in pitch of his voice. She turned back to him yet again, meeting his purple eyes with her own. She shook her head, and then she charged.

She hefted "Gelba's" form in front of her as she closed in on the left side of the semi-circle. The right would have to maneuver around the cart to get a shot at her, and if she was in a melee they couldn't shoot her without friendly fire.

" _Don't shoot!"_ The boy's voice cracked three times in two syllables from panic.

She was twenty feet away now.

The left side was growing nervous, their fingers brushing up against the thin steel of the triggers.

" _Don't shoot!"_

Fifteen feet.

"Do _not_ fire!"

Ten.

The red fog that clouded her mind seemed almost alive, growing in its distortion as she drew ever closer to their line. Her rage licked its coarse and cracked lips in anticipation of the bloodshed, and she could feel a laugh rising in her throat. It terrified her. It exhilarated her. Seven feet away was too close for someone on the left as a single gunshot rang out from the rightmost side of the left flank. She heard Gelba scream as the bullet tore through her; she wasn't sure where her shield had been hit, save that it wasn't anywhere immediately fatal like the heart or brain.

" _Stop! Don't-_ "

The boy was cut off by the crashing of bone, the meaty sound of flesh colliding with flesh, and in the indistinct and incoherent shouting of the melee. At five feet away Pyrrha again threw her shield into her foe, this time taking two men down with the still screaming Gelba. The man before her had a second to make eye contact with his death before an armored hand ripped out his throat. Pyrrha turned to the left, deflecting the butt of a rifle off her left forearm as her right fist punched through the Faunus' gut, severing his spine. She lashed behind her with her left leg and twisted, the spiked heel of her boot colliding with the neck of a woman who had been about to shoot her. She rotated her body with her foot as it came back to the ground, pushing off once it was free of the woman's neck and straight into the man behind her.

Pyrrha whirled and spun among the left side, and not a single spin, turn, swing, or thrust was wasted. Every move was calculated, every ounce of momentum utilized. It was a dance, a blood and rage filled dance of death, but still somehow beautiful.

Twenty-six seconds later the last of the monsters on the left side fell to the ground with an extra hole in his throat. All the while she had seen the right side pull round the front of the wagon and face her, weapons bared and barrels glistening dully in the grey mist of the day. She'd heard the green commanders desperate pleas to hold their fire, and as the last of the dead clattered against the road she turned her full attention towards them.

They were trembling, from rage and sadness, from sickness and fear, they were trembling. Arms shook and weapons wobbled as they stared at her in various extremes of emotion. She could tell from the minute movements of their heads that some were scanning the corpses she'd made, a few locking onto a face here and there and staring at her with renewed hatred. Where before she had flinched away from such gazes, here she just shrugged it off. _You're justified_ , a voice whispered in her mind, muscling through to the tiny alcove of rational thought in her mind, _they brought this on themselves._ Her hands clenched into fists at her side. _They're the monsters here, just look around._

 _They_ deserve _this._

"Fiiiire!" The cracking voice of the young commander rang out across the now silent carnage. It took a full second for the soldiers to regain control of themselves and pull the triggers. A second that probably saved her life. She brought her forearms to bare together in front of her head and neck, forming a vertical wall of bone plate over the more lightly protected part of her body during their hesitation. Bullets pinged off plate all across her body, not a single one breaking the stalwart defense. They were normal sized rounds, and they hurt somewhat, like getting smacked with a golf ball through protective padding; a dull and distant ache, but nothing serious or life threatening.

Suddenly, the air that was once filled with the sound of fifteen dust rifles went quiet, the din of controlled explosions ricocheting off the forest until they faded into the rustling of the wind blown leaves.

She lowered her arms, revealing her unharmed face to the line of soldiers that fumbled with their guns in fear, desperately scrabbling for new magazines of ammunition. She didn't give them the chance.

Her feet pounded against the broken flagstones as she charged him. The boy that had tried oh so hard to be a brave man in the face of a new terror. She deflected the panicked swipe of his scimitar off her right forearm before launching her hand into the underside of his jaw, and yanking outwards. She could hear the tendons rip and the jaw hinge snap as she removed his lower jaw, and all the flesh that came with it, from his head. His tongue dangled helplessly as he screamed, her elbow buffeted him to the ground as she passed, and he was too disoriented and in pain to remember to protect his head as he fell. With a resounding crack the back of his skull met unyielding stone and he went silent. She had already moved into the ranks of the others.

The first screamed and dropped her weapon, desperately back pedalling and scrambling to turn around and run as she closed in on her. The others soon followed suit. Five or six stayed and attempted to fight her off, whether it was out of rage, stupidity, or some malformed sense of honor she didn't know. The lake of blood grew as their gallons mixed with the others.

She turned to find the others fleeing toward the back of the caravan, the crimson symbol of the White Fang displayed prominently in defeat. _Kill them,_ it rasped, _they did the same to these innocents_. Red-green eyes scanned the caravan. _To these children._

These monsters had shown no mercy to the unarmed refugees that formed this caravan. She would give the fleeing soldiers the same treatment.

* * *

She pulled her sharpened gauntlet out of the last of the soldiers gut with a wet schlick, stopping briefly to shake her hand clean of the leftover gore. She turned on her heel and headed back towards the very front of the caravan. There was still one thing she had left to do.

The sharp thudding crack of her boots on stone echoed across the ruins as she made her way towards the source of the labored breathing and wracking sobs that contested her sound for dominance. There, sprawled in the center of her comrades bodies, was the woman she had used for a shield. Gelba was her name. She had a new bullet hole on her body, this one marring the flesh of her tricep. She lay in an ever growing pool of blood that was not her own, staring up at the cloudy sky as she murmured incoherently in between sobs.

Gelba's eyes shot towards Pyrrha's face as her form was shrouded in the shadow of this new terror, and suddenly all her sobbing ceased. Her murmuring continued, but it was all nonsensical begging. Begging her mother for forgiveness for an unknown wrong, apologizing to some far off sibling for not being there enough. She whispered a greeting to the sky about a dead lover as Pyrrha circled and crouched over her form.

Pyrrha was disgusted. Here was a wom-a _murderer_ begging for the forgiveness of her friends and family. If anyone deserved her begging it was the refugees who laid dead and mutilated around them. The ones she had helped to slaughter. Yet she had the _gall_ to ignore them and ask her family for forgiveness for minor slights, she _had no right._

Pyrrha's arm thundered forth and clasped Gelba's throat in an iron grip. Her red and green eyes flashing as the flow of words ceased. Slowly, deliberately, she dragged her right hand across the woman's face, leaving behind five gash marks as she did so, her hand had just reached the end of the woman's right jawline when she heard it.

For the second time that day she heard the panicked scream of that little girl, but this time it came from the woods to her right, about seventy-five feet away, give or take about fifteen or so. All thought of justice on the woman below instantly fled her mind as her head and body snapped towards the source of the sound and she took off like a missile through the brush. Boughs snapped and bushes were crushed as she bulldozed through the foliage, pouring all her energy into her legs to go as fast as she could. A second scream, this one was much closer now, only twenty or so feet away.

Pyrrha's mind was dominated by the thought of protecting that little girl, she didn't care who or what was in her way, she'd tear them to shreds as she had before.

A third scream sounded from before her as she tore through the foliage and into a wide clearing littered with dandelions and blood red poppies. On the far right side was the little girl, she was pressed back against an old oak gouged with claw marks from strikes she must have somehow dodged. Cornering her was a young, mindless Beowulf. It's whole being was focused on the screaming morsel in front of it as its claw began to raise once more.

Pyrrha's mind took all this in in a second, her body automatically changing directions and barreling towards the Beowulf. She closed the gap in the blink of an eye, just as the thing's paw had reached maximum height. A roar forced its way from her lips as she tackled the beast to the ground, it grunted in surprise, quickly followed by pain as Pyrrha snapped it's arm. Her right fist grabbed its snout and squeezed, while her left formed a point and plunged into the beast's chest. It attempted to howl, but her grip remained firm; her left fist found its heart and she pierced it, before releasing her right fist and crushing its snout twice for good measure.

She pushed herself bodily off the still form and towards the the quivering girl on her right. Anger flared within her as she noted that only one of her two ears remained atop her head. Her flowing brown hair was matted and blackened by dried blood, descending in ill formed clots dotted with leaves and twigs. Her yellow eyes stared back widely at Pyrrha's, pupils dilated to plates as her whole body tensed and shook.

It was imperative that Pyrrha not scare the child anymore than she already was, but with a gore covered form like hers how could she not?

 _The doll_.

With extra care to make all of her motion slow and deliberate, Pyrrha moved her hand towards her sash, and the doll that still lay nestled in the knot. The girls wide, yellow eyes followed her every motion with a hefty amount of fear, followed by an even larger amount of confusion when Pyrrha offered the little girl the doll with her outstretched arm. The girl's eyes kept flitting back and forth between her mask and the doll in her alabaster and ebony hand, her face switching between utter _bewilderment_ and fear with each focus.

It must've been thirty or so seconds of pure analyzing later that the girl seemed to settle on a decision. She locked eyes with Pyrrha and moved her arm slowly to grasp the thing's delicate torso. Tiny fingers gripped it and in the blink of an eye she yanked her arm back towards her body. She pressed the thing against her chest protectively with one arm, while the pure white knuckles that gripped the tree seemed to regain some color. The girl's expression, once three parts fear and one part confusion, now reversed.

That was all Pyrrha needed though, she smiled, and reached her hand to the back of her left hip, fingers brushing against the cold steel of her scroll. She pulled the two ends apart gently before typing a message across the screen. _Hello, what's your name?_

She held the scroll before the girl and delighted in the way her small jaw went slightly slack at the realization that a _Grimm was speaking to her._ She stood there, mouth agape, for a few seconds before attempting to speak; her mouth moved, but no words came. Taking a deep, and rather shaky breath, she spoke, "Brunt," she said, her trembling voice barely above a whisper.

Pyrrha's smile grew wider and, she hoped, warmer. _That's a beautiful name, Brunt. My name is-_ wait. Did she really want the girl to know her name? Her fingers froze above the keyboard. Pyrrha Nikos was a famous name, she knew that, hell, the fame had practically been ingrained into her life. It wouldn't be that surprising if the girl was a fan of hers, or looked up to the Champion of Mistral. Maybe one day she hoped she could follow in her footsteps and become a great huntress herself.

Did she want to show her what she'd become?

No. No, she didn't. The girl might not even be a fan, but just in case she was, she wouldn't share her true name. She didn't want to hurt her, even if it hurt herself to hide her already fading identity.

 _-is Thetis._ Her mother's name would do. _Would you like to come with me?_

She held the scroll before the girl, and couldn't help but notice the way her eyes managed to go even wider upon reading it.

Hastily, she pulled the scroll back again and explained herself. _I could keep you safe, keep anything like what happened today from ever happening again. No monsters, Grimm or human, will harm you in my company. I promise._

She held the scroll back out again and let her read. Pyrrha's heart was racing, and not from the combat she'd so recently been in. No, her heart was racing because of Brunt. She desperately wanted to protect her, and she'd be lying if she said it was for entirely selfless reasons. Most of it was selfless, true, but there was a part of her that ached for humanity, for confirmation that she wasn't a monster, and she saw that potential confirmation, and company, in the little girl before her.

But she was also terrified. What if the girl said no? She couldn't very well leave her out in the middle of the Grimm and White Fang infested forest, miles from any town or village. The girl would absolutely die. But how would she go about convincing her of that fact if she didn't already see it? What did she say, or rather, _type_?

The silence seemed to stretch on for eternity, the girl clutching the doll to her chest with one hand while the other fiddled mindlessly with the hem of her dress. Pyrrha's unoccupied hand began to stir, her sharpened gauntlets scratching the tough skin of her palm. A bird sang a song from her left, a rabbit rustled the bushes on her right, the leaves brushed and laughed with the wind, and the girl finally spoke.

"You promise?" Her eyes were full of a strange mix of hope and fear, her voice trembled slightly and she nearly popped the head off the doll she pressed it so tightly. Pyrrha was just about to nod yes when her mind was overwhelmed by a memory.

She was back in Beacon, in her team's room. The beds were still made and the room was still, well, _standing,_ so it couldn't have been after her return. She was aware of a voice, _her_ voice, emerging whole and beautiful and coherent from her throat.

"Yes Nora, I-I might have some... _feelings_ for Jaune, but that doesn't matter, he's clearly interested in Weiss. I don't want to get between them." The vertically challenged ginger's eyes before her suddenly lit up. "And _no_ , you cannot get between them for me." The light dimmed just a tiny bit. "And you cannot tell _anyone_ about this, not even Ren."

The evening light shone soft and golden through the dorm windows, the neatly folded white bedsheets scattering the gold to every surface in the room. Even though no lights were on the room was still well lit by the sun, and it was a nicer light, more pleasant and soothing than the artificial white of dust lamps or tournament lights. She liked it. The faint smell of maple syrup -no doubt the work of Nora- drifted through her nostrils and made her mouth water slightly at the enchanting scent. Some uniforms, mostly boys, lay scattered across the otherwise spotless hardwood floor, and a single shoe was somehow impaled in the ceiling.

Nora placed both hands on her hips and smiled devilishly up at her. "Come on, Pyrrha, where's the fun in that?"

"I'm serious Nora. Promise me right now you won't tell anyone. Especially not Jaune." The ginger hesitated. "Please."

Nora sighed, before her hand shot up in front of Pyrrha's face, some unknown digit almost piercing her nostril.

"Nora?" She said, emerald eyes crossed tremendously in a vain effort to spot the illusive digit. "I'm afraid I don't-"

"Pinky promise." She stated it as if it was the most normal thing in the world, even though Pyrrha had _no idea_ what that was.

"What?"

The ginger's grin widened even further, and her hand moved back from her nose, the digit that almost reached her brain revealing itself to be the girl's pinky finger. "A pinky promise is a super duper _serious_ promise, Pyrrha; it can never _ever_ be broken under any circumstances." She cocked her head questioningly. "You've never heard of one before?"

Pyrrha shook her head, releasing the same nervous laugh she always did when she was confronted with just how friendless and socially empty her life had been until this year. "N-no, I have not."

"Well, now you have. Here, take your hand and hold out just your pinky like me. Good, now we lock them together like this." The girl drew herself to her full height, putting on as serious a face as Pyrrha had ever seen on her.

"I, Nora Valkyrie, do pinky promise to never tell anyone, even Renny, about Pyrrha's _huge_ crush on Jaune." She gave her a sly smile and a wink before she coughed.

Pyrrha could've sworn she heard the phrase: "not that I'd ever need to," mixed in the cough, but her ears were probably just playing tricks on her.

A wave of relief and gratitude swept through her body like an avalanche, relaxing every muscle that had gone rigid as she confessed one of her darkest secrets to Nora. She sighed a happy sigh as her mouth split into a smile. "Thank you, Nora."

And just like that, Pyrrha was back in the clearing; blood and bits of flesh coating her bone armor, the soft golden light replaced with the hazy grey of a cloudy day. Where the scent of maple syrup had graced her nose, the strong metallic scent of blood, the burnt ozone of discharged dust, and the heavy smell of woodsmoke and burning flesh now invaded it. And before her, instead of the ever reckless and manic Nora Valkyrie, was a scared little girl dressed all in brown who looked up at her expectantly.

Without a second thought Pyrrha retracted the scroll from the girl's view and typed a new message.

She held her hand out, completely in a fist save for one digit that stood solidly at attention.

 _Pinky Promise._

Brunt smiled.

* * *

 **A/N: Oh boy, this chapter. Twelve easily holds the record for most rewrites and adjustments out of any chapter I've written for this story so far. Originally a lot more, I guess angsty maybe(?), I toned it down a lot to its current form, so I hope you guys like it.**

 **Poor Wizard had to go through all this and read it in all its word-vomit glory, so give the guy a round of applause for not strangling my sorry ass! Anyway, this marks the end of pre-written material for** _ **The Ivory Champion**_ **, and no, I'm not gonna stop updating. Just letting you guys know that, while I'll still aim for weekly and might even make it somewhat consistently, I'm not just editing and uploading a chapter from now on, I'll be doing it all in one week, so if a chapter doesn't get uploaded right on time it's probably something in real life got in the way of me finishing it up.**

 **Let me know what you guys think of this chapter, as always any and all feedback is welcome (it's how one grows as an author after all)! In other news I've written the first four chapters of my canon-divergent assassin-esque Ruby fic, so I might go ahead and upload the first chapter of that once I think of a** _ **freaking title.**_

 **Also in planning stages for writing a RWBY/GoT/ASoIaF crossover because that crossover section is** _ **criminally**_ **underpopulated. (Though I am somewhat floundering between LotR and GoT, let me know if you guys have a preference, I'm thinking GoT because I know the world better, but on the other hand RWBY vs Nazguls and Trolls and the Balrog and shit).**

 **That's all for today, folks, have a good one and stay safe this week!**


	13. Beast of Burden

_The child is a burden_ , the mountain of black and white before her rumbled, _you should kill her and be done with it._ The ground shook from each massive and lumbering step of the Goliath before them, and its grumblings shook the leaves of nearby trees with its bass.

She set her shoulders and bared her teeth at its rump, _I will do no such thing. I will protect her._

A soft, almost amused, trumpeting of air from the beast before her. _You can try, but she will die. All humans will._

A violent gust of wind buffeted her side as they broke out of the treeline, followed by a soft squeal of surprise from behind her as the gale slammed into Brunt. Pyrrha's head snapped around, one hand already reaching to firmly support the girl's back. Her palm was spread wide and flat, talons as far away from delicate flesh as they could be. It had been a position she'd found her hand adopting quickly over the past week.

Yellow eyes met crimson and verdant, and a smile split across the girl's face. Pyrrha returned it, relishing in the familiarity of the action as she did, before turning back to face the Goliath. It had turned, the left half of its scarred mask and trunk dancing with midday light that tore into her vision; crimson orbs at least a foot in circumference met her own. _Then I will die with them._

It snorted, the breath from its snout sending an explosion of sand and loose soil up into the air, _they will not abide you._ Its head turned to face the glimmering sea of blue-green that roiled in the distance. So close, yet so far.

 _You are deceiving yourself if you think they would allow anything but your demise,_ it said, continuing its earth shaking plod. She stood there, crimson-green eyes watching the beast flatten adolescent dunes indiscriminately, leaving whole tracts of once thriving miniature ecosystems in pancake-esque tatters.

 _Pancakes._

A scene flashed before her eyes, forcing the world out of her vision as it slammed itself to the forefront of her mind. She was sitting in a massive hall of tastefully gray stone with pillars that stretched ever upwards to a ceiling she could not see.

Warm, early morning light gushed through lofty arched windows that shot up out of her vision, just like the columns. Each massive pane was separated by a kindly, black steel frame that accented the gray of the hall quite nicely. An infinite din of various voices sounding at different volumes about different things formed a surprisingly peaceful backdrop for the morning. It soothed her. She closed her eyes and sighed.

The sound of cafeteria plates slamming against wood forced her eyes to snap back open and instinctively flick to the source. It was Nora, her plate was so full of pancakes that their tower surpassed even her sitting head, so that only the familiar white gloves, tufts of orange hair, and occasional splashes of pink were even visible.

"Are you sure that's healthy, Nora?" Her voice was soft and whole, a far cry from the ragged rasps she was used to now.

Strands of vertically shaking ginger hair, bits of flying pancake, and the muffled sounds of vicious consumption were her only answer. Pyrrha and Jaune both glanced questioningly at Ren, but the boy in green refused to even acknowledge anything unusual about the activities of his partner.

She smiled and lifted her fork, ready to dig into the mountain of protein that she had heaped upon her plate, but she never did. A tiny force tugged at the crimson sash around her waist, so she turned, without thought or regards for her action, after all, she was among friends at Beacon. Out of the corners of her eyes she could see the source of the din around her, but they were muted, indistinct. Less human and more smoke with constantly shifting faces clouded in gray. Here and there were familiar, solid faces, lighthouses of certainty in an uncertain mind, but they were few and far between. Her gaze did not linger on them, nor did it focus on the swirling mist that made up the rest of the people around her, instead it locked onto the diminutive form of Brunt behind her.

One hand gripped the flaking black doll close to her breast while the other was wrapped in a fist that gripped crimson cloth between white knuckles. Her yellow eyes were wide and filled with concern that bordered on panic. Pyrrha couldn't speak. What was Brunt doing here? She had never gone to Beacon, had never even been inside Vale for all she knew.

She blinked, and the real world appeared. The graceful windows and protective walls of Beacon were replaced by rolling dunes covered in reeds and scraggly shrubs. The din of humanity around her was gone, replaced by the roar of whipping wind mixing with the whispers of rustling leaves and the distant crash of the waves. The smells of food were gone, saltiness, seaweed, and brisk air replacing them. The familiar bronze of her armor and tan of her arms was gone, and in its place was the plating of white and crimson that masked pure white skin lined with pitch black veins.

There wasn't even a second to process it, Beacon was gone the second she closed her eyes, and the world around her was simply... _there_.

She blinked twice more, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide with concern. She was jarred, confused, shocked, confounde- _tug_.

Pinpricks of sparkling verdant encircled by burning orbs of red focused, and, sure enough, there was Brunt. The exact same in every way from when she'd seen her, but not seen her, in Beacon just a moment ago.

Pyrrha's right hand glided to her waist, pitch black palm easily encompassing the entirety of the child's fist. She gave it a gentle squeeze partnered with the most reassuring smile she could muster.

"What's wrong?" Brunt's voice was soft, a whisper in the gale of nature around them, but her ears still caught it.

A shake of the head: _nothing._

She felt the girl's grip tighten on her sash, saw the form of the doll shift closer to her chest, and noticed her lone ear twitch upwards.

Pyrrha breathed deeply, placing her left hand atop the girl's head, careful to avoid the torn remnants of her ear. The waves of brown flattened underneath her hand like the dunes underneath the Goliath, but Brunt did not flinch, instead her gaze only got more expectant.

"Memory," she spoke, throat constricting in pain and vocal chords growling in protest as she did.

Brunt said nothing, but her grip relaxed, her tiny fingers releasing the black fabric as her hand slid out from underneath Pyrrha's grip. She didn't quite smile, not really, but her eyes gave off a certain understanding that could've been mistaken for happiness.

The girl marched onwards, brown hair whipping in the rushing wind, and Pyrrha followed close behind, eyes scanning every dune again and again.

* * *

The night air was crisp and familiar, carrying that intimate yet unknown scent of darkness on the salty air. The wind still beat ceaselessly against her armor, switching sides at a moment's notice, and the sound of waves crashing against the shore still pounded against her ears. But everything seemed calmer, not quite dead, but not buzzing with life like it had been in the day. The insects and birds that her subconscious had registered were silent, their soothing cacophony replaced with silence broken only by the ground shaking footfalls of the Goliath and the occasional skittering of a crab. But, despite the darkness, she could actually see quite clearly.

That wasn't to say it was bright out, it was the deepest point of night, where only the stars and the shattered moon provided any light at all, but even then she could see everything somewhat plainly. And so, she assumed, given that the girl had yet to even trip, could Brunt.

The massive craters of sand and crushed plant life that the Goliath left behind helped make the journey easier, providing paths of alternating sides through the ever larger dunes of grass and sand. The, suffice to say, odd trio trudged along in silence, and not just because of the unrelenting wind.

The stars were an incredibly vibrant mix of colors that stretched in a horizontal ribbon across the night sky. Cloudy purples, electric pinks and blues, gentle reds that stretched on for what must've been hundreds or thousands of miles. Distant, almost spectral, clouds linked the ribbon together in a blossoming trail of gold, orange, green, and so much more. She didn't think she'd ever seen the stars so clearly; she loved it.

Brunt shuffled along barely five feet ahead of her, the tips of her shoes leaving shallow gouges smaller than the width of Pyrrha's wrist in the sand. Her right arm dangled limply at her side while the other managed to somehow still press the doll firmly against her stomach, but she teetered ever so slightly.

Pyrrha's head moved in a steady half-circle from left to right, eyes flicking across every cluster of shrubs and dune crest within fifty feet. She turned, walking backwards for a few steps as she did the same to the land they'd already passed before coming to a decision. She turned back around, slightly increasing her gait as she did; she was on Brunt in a second, leathery, midnight black forearms sliding gracefully behind her back and underneath her legs before lifting the girl up to her chest.

"Mm not tired," came the murmured protest, "I can keep going." The words were muffled by the unyielding bone plate that the girl somehow managed to cuddle into, and her yellow eyes were already half shut and glazed over from sleepiness. Pyrrha just smiled, her left hand grappling below before finally bringing up her onyx sash. She wrapped it delicately around the girl, taking extra care to place enough between her head and the plate for a comfortable pillow.

Something bloomed in her mind, but she wasn't sure where it came from. It was intimately familiar, even ingrained into her, but the thought refused to yield any secrets of its origin; it merely sat there in her mind, insistent on being used. And so, with a deep breath and an adjustment of the child leaning on her breast, she satisfied it.

She began to hum.

She might not have been able to sing, be it ever again or just for now, but she was confident this would do. The song was a soft one with slow, melancholic chords on a long beat that gave it a certain bittersweet peacefulness. She couldn't remember the words, or even what the song had been about, but she could remember the feelings associated with it: a deep love, a warm contentment, and a feeling of safety and serenity so overwhelming it almost made her laugh from sheer absurdity given the situation she was now in.

The halfhearted objections soon gave way to silence, followed in short order by tiny snores complemented by gentle fidgeting.

Pyrrha kept on humming though, both for Brunt's sake and for her own.

* * *

Pyrrha was laying down, bone plates breaking the web of roots that snaked across the surface of the dune with ease. Her head rested against the surprisingly soft mixture of roots, scrub, sand, and towering reeds that lined every dune in every direction except straight forward. Brunt was sleeping, brown hair a matted mess pressed against the ebony fabric of her sash while tiny fingers scrabbled gently against the ivory of her bone plates. The doll was pressed against her face, collecting new, drool-forged stains as marks of honor from its charge. She kicked and fidgeted, murmuring intense but incoherent words every now and then.

Pyrrha enjoyed it, the pressure on her chest, the warmth of her body, the comfort of just _someone_ being nearby. Her left hand moved unconsciously to Brunt's head, one armored digit twirling the brown of her hair gently around her finger before unwinding it again. There was something so human about the contact that it forced all thoughts of corruption, darkness, and Grimmness from her mind. It made her feel a little more whole, a little more certain. She smiled.

The Goliath stood exactly where and how it had been for hours: massive and scar laced face locked in an unceasing staring contest with the oceanic horizon. Its armored tail flicked and stretched, breaking through the air with a giant _whoosh_ each time, but otherwise it was silent and still. Frankly, she was impressed with how utterly stationary such a behemoth could be, she'd never really thought it possible.

Then again, there were a lot of things she never thought were possible that were rearing their heads right now.

Her eyes drifted across the multicolored sky, savoring every last drop of sparkling light. The clouds ran in their little race across quilt of nothingness, the wind blew across the surface of the beach, and the waves continued to pound again and again against the shore.

 _How are we going to cross the channel?_ She wasn't so scared of talking to the Goliath, not since Brunt came along; she had someone that didn't see her as a monster, or at least not a totally evil one. It made her more certain of her humanity, her identity.

 _You,_ it seemed to speak to the horizon, _will cross by air, on the wings of what The Weak call a Nevermore. It should be here soon._

A Nevermore. She didn't think she'd ridden one before, and yet something scraped a knife down the blackboard of her mind at the thought, rousing it to an acute awareness of the emptiness of her concept at least wasn't unfamiliar to her.

Brunt stirred on her chest, murmuring something about a family she no longer had; Pyrrha's eyes slid downwards at the movement, then hardened slightly when she heard the words. They snapped back up to the sky as her mouth set in a determined line.

 _Brunt is coming with me._

The Goliath stirred for the first time in hours, snorting and flapping its massive ears as it shook its head in a manner that would've been comical were it on a human, but instead was only intimidating. _It will die._

The absolute surety behind the statement had her tensing every muscle in her body as her mind screamed threat, but the Goliath made no move to attack, and nothing shot over the scrub covered dunes. Her fist dug into the sand, scraping it with sharpened bone as she mulled over the Goliath's "words". It was clear its "words" weren't a threat, it just saw them as statement of fact, and, in a way, maybe it was.

After all, nobody lives forever.

Her hand moved without thinking, wrapping around the center of the lump of black cloth topped with a tousled and greasy mane of brown curls that lay scattered on her chest in a river of brown. Her eyes found the moon.

 _Not while I draw breath._

A new star blossomed forty feet above the dunes and directly in front of her, a red dwarf fueled by centuries of nothing but hate, nothing but death, nothing but slaughter, all accented by an intelligence that was not only acutely aware of that, but enjoyed it. _Your love for The Weak is strange, considering the hate they will and do lay upon you like a swarm of flies. They are a blight, an accident. A failure. They know nothing but destruction and do not even have the means to protect themselves._ Its exhalation ripped through the air and across the sand in a clap of tearing wind and flourishing particles that landed with gentle plops upon the beach. _But it matters not why or how you love them, they will all die._ Its gaze shifted back to the horizon, disregarding the brilliant orange and purple of the sky that heralded the sun's imminent arrival.

Her glare never left the Goliath, but still, she was curious, intensely so. A gauntleted finger scraped softly across the armored surface of her chest, following the crimson trim to the ragged hole in her sternum. _What are the Grimm then?_

 _What are_ we _,_ came the Goliath's response. Shoulders made up of thousands of pounds of solid muscle shifted and rolled, moving trunks of flesh, bone, sinew, and even more muscle as its stance shifted into something akin to a formal posture. _We are the remnant,_ it said, pride dripping from its words like venom from a snake's fangs. _We are the cure._

Her eyes flicked across the grass and sand around her, spying every crab that scurried hurriedly to and from their sandy lairs, watching every bird that dived after them in an attempt for an early morning meal, analyzing every fish that leapt out of a sea that glimmered and burned like a fire dust crystal. She saw every clam that burrowed deep into the dark, wet sand, saw every drop of foam that danced and died in tiny tide pools of rock that hummed with starfish, minnows, crabs, and every other form of sea life left behind by the receding water.

And then the form on her chest shifted, groaning softly as she pawed at the sash to shield her eyes from the light of the world. Pyrrha's eyes did not leave her.

 _I don't believe you_ , she thought.

Sleepy eyes with golden pupils opened reluctantly, seeing but not really processing anything. There was a flicker of something as her eyes saw the sea and the Goliath, but exactly what Pyrrha couldn't tell. Then those same yellow irises shifted up to her face, locking onto her ivory mask and skin, scanning every pore, black vein, line of crimson trim, everything that marked her as a monster in a second. And yet, she smiled.

"Goo' morning, Thetis." The words were slurred with sleep, and her yawn was muffled by the skin of her arm as tiny fists rubbed at her eyes.

 _I_ can't _believe you._

The earsplitting cry of a Nevermore tore through the early morning peace of the world around her, shattering it in a second. Four eyes, one pair yellow, one pair green and red, joined the already massive crimson orbs of the Goliath as they locked onto the ever growing dot of blackness in the fiery sky.

* * *

 **A/N: First off: sorry about the wait, it was a lot longer than I, and you, anticipated. Basically what happened is the first week after I took a break and worked on some other stories that are yet to be published. Then the week after was midterms + lots of papers, so that dominated my week. Wanted to finish this chapter up over Fall Break, but had a few family emergencies/tragedies that prevented that. So I've been writing this since the beginning of this week in intermittent little spurts.**

 **Primarily a character/setup chapter, and I'm sorry about that, but this is officially the last chapter on the continent of Sanus (Vale and Vacuo, thanks World of Remnant!); after this we will be on Mistral's continent (forget the name) and, well, so will most everyone else. Things might get a little hairy.**

 **Also hot** _ **dayum**_ **dat RWBY 4 tho. Good as fuck fight and the entirety of the scene in the blacksmith's shop was fantastic, from the comedy of the hoodie reveal to the somber nature of the new armor. For those wondering, this fic takes place** _ **after**_ **the events of Volume 4 chronologically, seeing as the timeskip for it was 6-8 months after Vol. 3 and this fic takes place 12-20 months (I know I said one year, but that seems a little rushed in retrospect, may change that) after the Fall of Beacon. Just something to keep in mind in regards to the future pacing of this fic and stuff.**

 **Anyway! The first chapter of my Ruby-Assassin-Canon-Divergent fic** _Sanguine_ **is ready to be published and released this weekend, so be on the lookout for that if it sounds interesting to you; I'm very excited for it and love writing it.**

 **Other story updates: Gonna be reforming the GoT crossover that I wrote pretty heavily, wrote four chapters, but wasn't satisfied with certain aspects of the story, so I'm gonna be revising that. Also wrote two chapters for a LotR crossover to test it out, feels pretty good so far, though I have no overarching story plan for that one. I'm also in the planning stages for a Dragon Age crossover if that sounds cool to any of y'all, after that I'll be working on a sci-fi, galaxy spanning, AU/Crossover (maybe/kinda) sorta deal. So, to sum up, four main stories:** _The Ivory Champion, Sanguine, Lyrium and Dust (working title), and Galactic Remnants (working title)_ **. Let me know what you guys think of all those ideas, I know it's a lot, but they all seem like so much fun to write!**

 **That's all for today, y'all! Have a good one and stay safe out there!**


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